


Paradiso

by theleafpile



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Human, F/F, F/M, Gen, Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Lucifer AU, POV Chloe, POV Lucifer, Pre-Fall Lucifer, Pre-Relationship, Suicide Attempt, everybody has trust issues, moral of the story: you can fall in love with the right person at the wrong time, thinly veiled hades/persephone metaphor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-27
Packaged: 2019-03-12 22:16:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 61,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13556697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theleafpile/pseuds/theleafpile
Summary: Lucifer Morningstar, head chef atParadiso, is at the pinnacle of his career. His father had asked him to make the restaurant a success, which he did. He traveled across the world, spent endless hours working, and took it upon himself to do more, to be more, to make headlines, to make his own reputation be the talk of the city. His phone was always on.Hewas always on.Not that it mattered, it seemed.Dadhad stopped calling a long time ago.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wollfgang](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wollfgang/gifts).



> "Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new."
> 
> Ursula K. Le Guin, _The Lathe of Heaven_

Lucifer Morningstar, age 36, Sagittarius, middle child of eight and Executive Chef at the trendy L.A. bistro Paradiso, was thoroughly convinced that the only way to remain at the pinnacle of Creation was to ensure no one ever measured up to his high standards.

The modern eatery, in which his father held more than controlling interest, sat 62 guests and currently maintained a reservation list the length of his arm. Black awnings over the floor-to-ceiling windows cut the glare from the busy downtown street while soft lighting illuminated the dining space, decorated in black chairs and cream-colored tales. Built-in mahogany shelving held an array of wine bottles, stacked to the ceiling, and each table held its own, unique array of freshly cut flowers. The floors were clean, the bar was well-stocked, the wait staff efficient and courteous, the wine list impressive and the menu changed from week-to-week, with some standing favorites.

Lucifer was indifferent to the décor, but something about it kept people calm and pleased, so he left it to the experts his father had hired. He was only out in it a few times a week, making the rounds late after the dinner rush, forging connections and contacts as easily as breathing.

Pressing the flesh, so to speak, was Lucifer’s greatest specialty. His unique flavor combinations and presentations kept his guests coming back for more, but the man himself maintained a sense of class with just enough of a razor’s-edge sense of modernity beneath it to draw the eye. Or mouth.

Really, he wasn’t picky about orifices, as long as there was pleasure involved.

Lucifer’s unwavering ability to maintain order in the hellscape of a kitchen earned him the respect of his staff, especially after crushing the few uprisings in the beginning, when the crew was not yet on stable footing. He stood a head taller than most, towering over his staff as they slipped around him as seamlessly as cogs in a machine, despite the small size and winding corners of the kitchen. He could often be found stirring, chopping, plating and advising with practiced ease, his dark eyes focused and, admittedly, slightly unnerving in their attention. The phrase “hot behind” still brought a small smile to his face, no matter how many times a day he heard it. Lucifer was just as often the calm eye of the storm as he were the one whipping the kitchen into a frenzy; it just depended on his mood.

Lately, he found himself agitating the waters more often than not, setting his staff on edge.

His dishes were elegant and pristine, calculated and contemporary, and widely varied; influences could be found from the Italian hills to the Andean mountains, Lucifer being very proud of being able to take a taste from somewhere and adapting it to the modern palate, uncaring if the finished product was only a shell of its normal, usually more nourishing, self. It didn’t matter. People came to him all the same.

He never forgot to remove his white, double-breasted chef’s jacket when he left the kitchen, revealing a sleek, expensive, and completely impractical dress shirt beneath, unwilling to step into the real world with even a hair out of place – a Sisyphean task, given the fact that he often spent 16 hours or more in the back, the roaming hands of the clock above the swinging double door to the dining area holding almost no meaning.

It wasn’t the uniform or title that made a chef, he knew. There was something different, something that set him apart and allowed him to rise to the top – and stay there. 

Something that made him craftier than others, smarter, and –

Something.

So when Lucifer left the kitchen, his kingly status left with him.

He and the staff usually slipped out well past midnight, the city glittering in the dark like so many he had been to, and yet with its own particular flavor of grit and desperation. L.A. was colored in buzzing neon, held about as much substance as a meringue, slipped under his touch like slick silicone, and tasted of the kind of second-hand smoke that lingered in car seat cushions.

If this was the City of Angels, he couldn’t imagine the City of Dis.

They would drink until the pub du jour closed, by which time he’d happily find himself with one or two eager, pretty young things on his arm. He’d take them back to his open, airy Hills mansion overlooking the cityscape, and spend the next several hours fucking or being fucked (depending on who he took home), drinking and snorting blow until the night petered out and he fell asleep, thoroughly spent and ready to do it all over again.

(It had been a rush, once, but all Lucifer could do now was chase a ghost.)

His father had asked him to make the restaurant a success, which he did. He traveled across the world, spent endless hours working, and took it upon himself to do more, to be more, to make headlines, to make his own reputation be the talk of the city. His phone was always on. He was always on.

Not that it mattered, it seemed.

 _Dad_ had stopped calling a long time ago.

-

Lucifer left the warmth of his bed, his lover of the evening sleeping soundly beside him. The white sheets slipped off his pale, moonlit skin before he threw on a dark, silk robe that quite intentionally matched his boxers. He padded, barefoot and quiet, toward the bar, pouring himself two fingers of scotch before stepping through the open back doors, draw in by the view of the city.

The sounds of traffic, of life, couldn’t reach him here. He was above it all. Elevated.

Distant.

The hills were just beginning to lighten with the rays of the rising sun, leaving the ocean wine-dark in the distance. The city remained as cold and silent as the stars fading above.

He tugged the robe closer against the pre-dawn chill and lifted the tumbler to his lips, letting the cool liquid play in his mouth before swallowing, the alcohol burning down his throat.

Lucifer knew that his father was a busy man. He oversaw far too many corporations and independent entities than any one man ought, wielding power as though he had been born with it.

No one wanted to incur his father’s wrath.

No one.

Lucifer downed the rest of the drink in one, trying to squash the feeling that lay at the bottom of the glass – of every glass. It lurked in the shadows of the large, empty house, in the seconds before the high hit, in the emptiness after an orgasm.

“Hey,” came a soft voice behind him. A warm, gentle hand slid down his arm, and his skin prickled at the contact, still on edge from his thoughts. It turned him to face the sleep-mussed brunette gazing up at him, her expression full of gentle concern. “You okay?”

He barely knew her name.

The sincere look in her eyes scraped against his mind like a fork on a plate, a stark reminder that he could not – would not – tell anyone what he was truly feeling, lest he wanted to say goodbye to his reputation and all he had worked so hard to build.

He lifted the glass between them, dangling it teasingly, and plastered a smile on his face. “Just wanted to continue the party.”

Her smile bloomed, concern forgotten. “You know it’s like, six in the morning?”

“Is it?” he asked, wrapping his free hand around her waist.

“Yeah,” she answered, breathing out in a soft huff as he pulled her close.

“Better get started then,” he murmured, ducking his head to speak against her lips. He pushed his hips into hers, letting her feel the bulge of his cock against her. “You know what they say about early risers.”

She giggled, a little shyly, and dropped the sheet she had wrapped around herself. He pressed her back inside, smiling as they walked backward before she ducked away, laughing as she took the last few, light steps toward the bar. He lifted her onto it easily and she slid forward, wrapping her legs around his waist as he kissed up her neck, her hands roaming his body.

She breathed out his name.

She wanted him.

They all did.

He breathed out a sigh of relief.

-

Lucifer caught the last few eyerolls his sous chef and second-in-command threw his way; he could only imagine how many he had missed from his protégé and South African native. They were, he knew, in response to his ever-souring attitude that week, a week in which he was absolutely, completely certain the Universe was conspiring against him. 

The deliveries had been late, the quality of some products poor because of the ever-increasing drought, and he hadn’t had a call to do an interview for any magazine for six months, a fact which Lucifer was trying very hard not to take personally.

And that was before the grease fire.

Maze dove for the fire extinguisher, tucked next to the stainless steel center table, and managed to shove Lucifer off-balance. His forearm caught the worst of it, the underside of his left arm and elbow licked by the flames.

“Maze!” he shouted, trying very hard not to wince in pain as he held his wrist in his hand, lifting the arm to his chest. It was chaotic; everyone moving away or moving closer, trying to help. “Stop!” he barked, forcing himself to still.

And everyone did.

Everyone except Maze, who extinguished the fire beside him and ruined the contents of four pans and three pots and God knows what else in the process.

He seethed, clenching his jaw at both the insubordination and the pain.

“What?” she asked, holding the hose. “You’d rather burn?” Instead of waiting for an answer, she wheeled around to face the rest of the staff. “You know what to do,” she said, impatiently snapping her fingers, whipping everyone back into gear as they tried to salvage what they could and begin again with what they could not.

She tossed the extinguisher into the hands of another and grabbed Lucifer by the collar, dragging him unceremoniously from the kitchen, through a winding array of small rooms shouting “behind!” to the cooks, and until they were out the back door.

He was far too surprised to respond.

She shoved him into the dark alleyway. He stumbled over himself, smacking into the dumpster on the other side. He straightened, trying to get a look at the wound in the streetlight, and heard the door shut behind her, locking it.

“Oh, now look what you’ve done!” he snapped.

“What I’ve done?” she countered. “Are you serious? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“With me?” he asked, incredulous. “Nothing is wrong with me. If I could find people who –”

“Yeah. With you,” she interrupted. “I’m tired of your shitty attitude. I can handle tonight. You,” she pointed, “go home.”

He gritted his teeth, straightening to his full height and striding forward, rapidly closing the space between them. “You will not speak to me in this way.”

She lifted her chin, staring defiantly into his eyes.

He raged at her silence.

She lifted a hand to his open collar, her small hand dark against his skin. She must have thought better of it, because she pulled away before touching his skin. “Stop caring,” she warned.

She knew. She always did. That was one of the reasons he needed her around, why he had her come with him from Cape Town to Auckland, from London to L.A.

No part of him was going to admit that he was a hair’s breadth away from fucking losing it, but he didn’t have to.

“Go home,” she repeated, softer. “Unless you want to go through the front like that.”

He mentally surveyed himself, and she smiled at his vanity. When starting out, it was normal for a cook to find oneself with cuts, scrapes, bruises and burns – but it was a mark of the professional to remain decidedly unmarked. It would be horribly embarrassing to be caught in such a state.

He tore off the jacket and she took it, folding it over her arm and tucking the singed cuff out of sight. He started to fish out his keys, ignoring the pain blooming on his arm.

It wasn’t his first burn.

He was walking away when she called out.

He stopped and she approached, shoving something into his hand. He lifted it enough to see it was a hastily scrawled list, crumpled and warm from a pocket. “Produce. Tomorrow. Make yourself useful.”

He shook his head as she walked away. “I have people for this,” he told her back, lifting the note between two fingers.

“Not anymore you don’t,” she answered easily, spinning on a heel to offer him a shrug.

She disappeared around the corner, leaving him haloed under a streetlight.

Alone.


	2. Chapter 2

Chloe Jane Decker, age 34, Virgo, only child, mother of one, and sole owner of Decker Family Farms, found herself committed to the idea that pleasure was not a prerequisite to having a respectable, meaningful existence. Pleasure had never brought her long-term happiness, and she wasn’t sure the whole business was for her. While other people seemed to revel in it, she could only look and wonder what their short-term highs meant for their well-being in the long-term.

She was also trying very hard to make sure “Decker” and “family” stayed in the name of her business, because it certainly wasn’t looking like it would stay that way for very much longer. 

She smiled and waved at her daughter, her child’s face lit up by a dizzying array of colors as she spun, laughing, on the small roller coaster, one of many atop Santa Monica’s pier. The girl’s father, Dan, sat beside her, his arm tense around the back, ready to grab ahold of their ever-rambunctious 7 – no, 8 – year old, now, in case she bored and flung herself out of the seat. 

Chloe leaned on her forearms on the metal gate, her smile fading as her – well, not ex, exactly, not yet – and child concentrated on the ride. 

The ricocheting sounds of the whirling ride faded around her. Her gaze drifted over her shoulder, down the pier and out onto the ocean. The chill in the air and ache threatening to form behind her eyes told her it was time to go home. It was past time, actually, but both parents gave in to Trixie’s begging request for one more ride. Chloe knew it was out of guilt – Trix had been asking to come to the pier forever, but neither parent found themselves with the time. Trixie had stopped asking until yesterday, when she was absolutely vehement that they must go tomorrow, _or else_.

Chloe, distracted, must have been staring for a while, because suddenly there was her child breathlessly tugging on her sleeve, her dark eyes glittering in the flashing lights and betraying a sugar rush that was sure to crash any moment. “Again?” she asked, hopeful.

Chloe looked to Dan, who rubbed his eyes but lifted his other hand in a shrug. “Alright,” she told the girl, who beamed and rushed back to her father’s side. Chloe motioned that she was going to walk to the end of the pier, and he nodded, laughing at his child’s enthusiasm as she eagerly grabbed his hand. 

She wondered, as she passed thinning crowds of people, who all the people were, what kind of lives they led that brought them all here, together, in this moment. A throng of laughing teenagers, the girls’ arms looped together as they shared a blue cotton candy, staining their tongues; a couple, older than she, walking slowly, close but not touching; another couple, young and well-dressed, sharing a pretzel at a metal table; dozens of parents watching from the sideline of the merry-go-round, waving, as she had just been, at their children.

They could be lawyers or I.T. specialists, stay-at-home dads or interior designers, nurses or teachers or anything, really. She was fairly certain, however, that they did not spend their days, as she did, with their hands in the earth.

Shame.

They were all so disconnected from it all, from the ebb and flow of life and death, from the cycles of growth and dormancy. Sure, much of her job was accounting and paperwork and planning and ordering – the business didn’t run itself – but there were also the moments in-between, when she found herself overlooking her backyard of the small home she, until recently, shared with the man she called her husband, sipping a coffee in the morning light and inhaling the sweet scent of damp earth.

Decker Family Farms, as it were, was a small, organic operation, 25 acres and not quite an hour south of Hollywood – even with traffic. Her father, John Decker, had kept a few animals – goats and chickens, mostly, with a few rare breeds of ducks thrown in for good measure – but Chloe found she didn’t have the heart for slaughter, and so shifted to predominately berry growing after she took over the business. Strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, mulberries, and chokecherries all thrived in the southern California sunshine; in the fall a few rows of pumpkins were harvested, to sell mostly to folks in her neighborhood to make jack-o-lanterns and pumpkin pie. She kept the avocado trees her mother had planted in the ‘70s (getting way ahead of that trend) and the rows of apple trees her father had, setting up baskets at the start of the rows and allowing folks to pick their own. She knew when to put out straw beneath the bushes so the strawberries, dragged down by their own weight, wouldn’t touch the soil below and so never had to touch water before they met someone’s mouth, able to be eaten still warm from the sun. She knew how to make chokecherry jam and elderberry syrup – great for coughs – her kitchen counters stained with blue and purple blooms, like bruises, from experimenting. 

She had already sold off half the property, and it had been like carving off a pound of flesh. 

Chloe had decided, then, that no matter what happened next she would not allow herself to feel anything about it. 

Anything.

It was a business.

No one needed to know that every lost acre broke her heart. 

She reached the end of the pier, but instead of looking out into the ocean, she stared instead onto the beach. The sand slid out of the dark water, pale as a ghost, reaching out. 

But for what, she didn’t know.

-

The rest of the night stretched out ahead of him. Lucifer had never been one to find himself with unexpected free time, and it took several minutes of driving for him to mentally leave the kitchen behind. 

He couldn’t go home. How could he go home? 

It would be like he was crawling back to a safe place, his tail tucked between his legs, returning to lick his wounds.

He wouldn’t give his wounds the satisfaction.

The burn screamed for attention. He rolled down his shirt sleeves and gripped the wheel tightly, far too on-edge to enjoy a night-in and too wound up to relax in a bar. He knew himself enough to know that adding alcohol to the current swirl of emotions in his chest would only result in him waking up with bloody knuckles and black eyes in a drunk-tank, a confused officer poking him conscious to release him without any paperwork – courtesy of his father.

It would be one way to get his father’s attention, but Lucifer had left that kind of desperation back in his twenties. To do so now would be interpreted as a cry for help.

Lucifer did a lot of things, but showing vulnerability wasn’t one of them. 

To anyone.

Ever.

He found himself speeding down the streets of downtown L.A. and West Hollywood, radio blaring, until he found himself staring down the flashing lights of the Santa Monica pier. The Ferris wheel turned slowly in the night, throwing an arc of blue and red lights over the dark water and honey-colored sands below. Laughter and the shrill machinations of games skirted over the air toward him, fading into the night.

He didn’t have children to entertain – perish the thought – nor any lover who would drag him to such a place. None had tried. They were not interested in anything other than a light evening of copious orgasms. 

He offered them the only thing he could: the best night of their life. They took it from him easily, as though it were something that was, by all rights, theirs. Phone numbers weren’t exchanged, and they didn’t come back for more, despite leaving in the morning with a smile.

He abandoned the car and wandered down the beach. The pier shone like a beacon above him, but he ignored it, stumbling across the sand until he was sure he was unseen, a dark spot on the beach to any curious onlooker. 

The wind pried its cold fingers under his skin. He could feel them, like winding tendrils, like all his skin was scarred and every movement pulled at its sinews.

Bone-tired, he collapsed.

He dug his hands into the sand, gritty and hard and cold beneath him, revealing in the numbing sensation it offered. The dull, throbbing ache of the burn was soothed by the chill but still he could feel his heartbeat in it, steadily pounding.

He stared blankly at the horizon, letting the sound of crashing waves engulf him.

It should have been peaceful, staring at the blurred line where sky met water.

If only numbness meant peace.

He wondered what it would be to reach out, to meet that line and pass it, to fall off the edge of the world. 

To stop this skirting around the edge bullshit. To stop flirting with the never-ending sensation of l'appel du vide and _do_ something about it, for once. 

His body began to shiver. He ignored it.

His father asked him to work himself to the bone, always holding his approval just out of reach. He did that for all his children, no doubt, but Lucifer could see himself reflected in his father’s eyes. There was something dark in him. Something wild.

Something free.

It frightened them both.

His father set up all the pieces, a labyrinth of nearly impossible tasks. Lucifer could only offer his best, and yet – it never seemed to be enough.

But – was that what his father wanted? For him to fail?

For him to fall?

What would that even mean?

Should he care?

Lucifer lifted his knees and let his head fall between them, closing his eyes. The shadow of his father’s thumb fell over half the world’s stock markets and God knows what else. To say that he controlled his children’s lives was an understatement. He and his siblings had been watched and tested since birth, educated and trained in the trades their father thought suited them best.

Lucifer was told to find his passion on his own. 

Out of everyone. 

He didn’t allow himself to think he had been forced out. His siblings were too envious for him to explain to them that it was he who was getting the short end of the stick. They had their lives planned. They were given a path, and every step they took down it pleased their father. 

He wandered around the world, restless. He did a lot of things, true. Curiosity was his ever-present companion, urging him forward, getting him into trouble and getting him out of it. 

And, when his father reigned him back in, he must have known something Lucifer did not. He set up his son as an apprentice in a Michelin-starred restaurant in the south of France for five years before calling him home, to run a brand-new restaurant in London’s West End. 

His father had been unaware (Lucifer assumed, perhaps even _hoped_ ) that he had left the restaurant a year earlier, traveling down the coast of Africa before meeting Maze at its tip, flying with her across the ocean and reveling in his apparent freedom. 

Yet when the call came, he submitted.

He was shocked at how happy he had been that Maze decided to join him.

Five years passed under the gray skies of London before one day, out of the blue, Lucifer’s father graced the restaurant with his presence. He sat at the bar, ordered one drink, and waited. Lucifer still remembered it – Dewer’s White Label Scotch with just a splash of Amaretto. Perhaps he remembered it because his father had not touched it, and Lucifer drank it without tasting it after he left. 

Lucifer joined him, sliding carefully onto the stool beside him, wiping his hands on a dishtowel and not meeting his eyes.

He told him where to go and what to do, and Lucifer obeyed. 

His word, after all, was law.

And now, the anniversary of his fifth year in L.A. had come to pass. 

Unthinkingly, Lucifer rubbed his wrist.

He looked down, half-expecting to see chains.


	3. Chapter 3

Chloe hadn’t meant to stare.

The human eye naturally followed movement, is all. 

Something about the man’s gait on the sand suggested he was drunk, but his dark form was too lithe and light on his feet for that. She wondered, perhaps, drugs, but something in her had her shaking her head at the thought. He wasn’t gesticulating wildly, as she had seen so many of L.A.’s homeless do, and he was far too well-dressed to be counted among them, his skin pale against his dark shirt and trousers. 

She hadn’t meant to watch. It felt intrusive, like looking into a brightly-lit window from a darkened street.

The man fell to his knees before falling further back, catching himself and remaining in a preternatural stillness, staring out over the water. The slope of his shoulders, the way he hunched over himself – 

She couldn’t help her heart from reaching out toward him.

Her traitorous heart.

She pulled herself off the railing and reminded herself that she had enough problems without trying to concern herself with everyone else’s, too, even if she couldn’t begin to fathom what they were.

Chloe Jane Decker wasn’t a superhero, or an angel, or, despite what her middle name suggested – _a gift from God_ – and she sure as hell wasn’t here to save the world, or anyone in it.

Not when she could barely save herself.

-

Strawberries. 

That was the last thing on his list, beside a hastily scribbled name – S.M. Main Street – and just below another, which was completely indecipherable. The last bit he could perhaps make out – Farms – but otherwise, Maze’s handwriting was exactly the same as the scene he found himself in front of.

Chaos.

The other markets weren’t like this. They were daily markets, their own tiny little shops, like so many he had been to in the Arabian Peninsula and West Africa, and not this tangle of multicolored tents, only a street lane’s width of space between them. Fabric rustled in the light breeze, a myriad of organically-grown cotton t-shirts and skirts. A rainbow of colors decorated the tables, of vendors selling avocados and oranges, every color of carrot and tomato, varies of lettuce and other greens, a veritable cornucopia of fresh food. 

He should have been more excited. He had been, once, when he was learning and exploring and tasting everything he could put into his mouth. 

But now…

Now, he couldn’t figure out what was happening. 

The heavy, gray skies were threatening rain, thinning out the crowd a little. Despite the chill, people mingled with one another on the closed-off street, sampling and admiring, chatting, their laughter barking along with the few leashed dogs who strained to chase untethered children.

He took another look at the list, trying his best to interpret it because he would not be calling her for help, _thank you very much_. Presumably, he met the proprietors, somewhere down the line. Presumably, they would remember him much more than he them, and presumably the fifteen pounds of the organic fruit she had ordered would be ready to go and he would be hearing his name called over the din any second now.

Yep.

Any second now.

Lucifer got the distinct feeling that people were beginning to wonder why he was standing in one place for so long.

He skirted over the edge of the crowd, smiling and making small talk, finding his magnetizing presence drawing people in more than pushing them away. Some of the vendors had strawberries, but not many, and so far he had gone unrecognized – even after charmingly introducing himself.

(Though charming was, of course, his default setting.)

He was half-way up the other side of the street, empty handed but successfully avoiding running children, sticky with caramel and cotton candy, when the only thing that could have made the experience any more pleasant happened.

The heavens opened, and it began to rain.

Lucifer shut his eyes against the sudden downpour. 

The surprised cries of shoppers filled the air, and he could hear them, the couples he saw earlier huddling together and laughing as they ran back to their cars. Children screamed in joy, as yet unburdened with such an ideas as inconvenience or dry clean only. The water soaked all the way through to his designer shoes, but Lucifer couldn’t bring himself to care. The damage was already done. Even the gauze bandage, hastily slapped on last night, was soaked under his shirt.

He didn’t think God was meteorically inclined, but Lucifer was certain He had it out for him.

A small tug at his cuff gained his attention. He startled, looking down into the face of a small, dark haired child who barely came up to his waist, her brown eyes staring imploringly, uncaring that she was getting soaked through.

“Hello,” he told her. 

She released his cuff, and from behind her back pulled out her other hand. In it, she lifted a perfectly red, ripe strawberry. “You look like you need it,” she said, shaking it a little at his hesitation.

Tentatively, he took the fruit from her, a thank you on his lips before she abruptly grabbed his hand, pulling him behind her until they were underneath a very small tent, barely more than a few short strides across. She let go and he stumbled in the last few steps, finding himself beside a tablecloth-covered table, atop which sat crates of fresh strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries.

He took a bite of the fruit as the child pulled herself onto a stool, wiping the rain off her face with the back of her hands and a smile. A rustle from beside him had him glancing down. 

Nothing about her struck him, other than her simply being a well-formed woman. Her long, straight blonde hair was gathered in a low ponytail that fell down the back of a red, flannel checkered shirt, tucked into dark jeans. She was squatted down, shoving a box under the table.

She finished and made to stand. He offered a hand, which her eyes followed back up to his face. 

She didn’t take it.

He faltered a bit, taking back his hand and offering a smile instead. “Hello,” he drew out, taking her in. He took another bite of the fruit, enjoying the view, before tossing the stem into a trashcan. He slipped a finger into his mouth, slowly dragging it through his closed lips.

Her slender body stood about a head shorter than he, forcing her to tilt her chin up to meet his gaze. Her mouth curved in an amused smile at his elevator eyes, her pink lips plush and begging to be kissed. Her skin was smooth and pale, paler than he usually came across in sunny SoCal, where sun-worshippers and spray-tanners abounded.

But it was her eyes that took his attention. They were the most striking shade of blue, bright like a noontime sky. They stopped him in his tracks, and his smile widened.  
“Hi,” she said, curtly but polite. 

He wanted her to say more. There was something familiar in her voice, in the sharp line of her jaw, her perfect cupid’s bow. 

“Have we met before?” he asked, unsure.

-

This was the last month she was giving this market a chance. 

The fee to rent a space had been steadily climbing over the last few years, and Chloe had really only kept it because of its familiarity – she had run around these stalls when she was Trixie’s age – and, more than she’d like to admit, a sense of loyalty. 

She could at least give Trixie a few more weeks to commit to memory those long Sundays, setting up and selling and taking down at the market. Chloe knew that kind of hard work, of the expectation of doing something until it was done, was important to establishing a baseline as her daughter grew. Of course, the child tried her best to get out of it, flitting like a butterfly from vendor to vendor, making friends easily and snacking on samples until they were stopping by Chloe’s tent when Trixie wasn’t there, asking about her and making sure she was okay. Chloe didn’t have the heart to tell them that Trixie had only been with her regularly these last few months because she could no longer afford a babysitter.

It was sweet, how easily her daughter made friends. Chloe remembered being the same, but lately, the stars had not been aligning.

Her regulars, people whom she used to have long conversations with, asking about her farm and growing process had become near strangers, only offering her a polite smile as they passed. Only strangers, it seemed, were intent on keeping her in business. 

Dan certainly wasn’t.

He was the reason half her farm was missing, and while she had signed off on the deal in the end Chloe wasn’t entirely sure she would have taken it in the first place if he hadn’t told her it was the right thing to do, to finally let it go, citing the benefits of concentrating on smaller tasks. After that, the wives who used to come alongside their husbands for Dan’s monthly poker game kept coming up with excuses not to, until the game got moved to another’s house (and, assumingly, back to Dan’s, when he got his own place after the separation). 

And that was _before_ the Palmetto incident.

Chloe quickly bagged a stranger’s blackberries, taking her cash and suggesting she take cover. The young woman followed her gaze up to the sky and nodded, and with a quick wave she was gone. Chloe watched her leave with what remained of her customer-service smile, only to watch the woman slip past – and take a long, lingering look over – a tall, dark-haired man. 

A tall, dark-haired man who had exactly the same height, weight, build and clothing style as the man she had seen on the beach, yesterday.

He seemed to be looking for something, lifting himself slightly to overlook others’ shoulders onto tables. His profile was striking, with a strong nose and a dark five o’clock shadow, outlining the cut of his jaw. 

Even from down the way, she could sense the intensity of his gaze. There was something haughty in it, as though he could sense he didn’t belong and was trying to make up for it. Yet the ease in his shoulders, the fluidity of his movements as he lifted a hand to ask about something, betrayed confidence.

It couldn’t be the same man.

But. _If_ it was.

He had been arresting from a hundred feet away, and now he was only four steps from her.

His gaze traveled over the table in the tent beside her, his grin smug but disinterested and he looked over their goods. It was obvious he was about to move on, his eyes already drifting toward her – 

Chloe dropped to the ground behind the table.

She could hear the sudden tell-tale smack of rain on the top of the tent and looked up, able to see the impact of dark droplets atop the laminate, white fabric, drumming out staccato notes. Trixie rushed past her; Chloe reached but her child was too quick, out the tent before Chloe could say a word in protest.

Chloe smacked herself on the face, remembering why she was squatting in the first place. 

Nonsense, was what it was.

Obviously it wasn’t the same guy as the beach, because that would be insane, and oh yeah, even if it was, there was absolutely no reason to hide. It’s not like he could have ever even seen her, silhouetted by the bright lights. 

And yet, here she was, watching the rain begin to run in rivulets past her shoes.

She shoved a box of produce deeper under the tablecloth, ensuring its safety before making to rise.

Only to see a hand held out in offering.

She closed her eyes for the briefest of moments, reminding herself once more that it was definitely not the same guy and it was none of her business and there was no reason to be nervous, at all, except she could feel his eyes roaming over her and if that didn’t make her skin prickle she didn’t know what did.

It seemed her heart wasn’t the only one who could be traitorous.


	4. Chapter 4

The rain continued to drum steadily atop the tents, blaring out a hundred thousand tiny beats until it all melded into one cacophonous noise, making Lucifer raise his voice a little to be heard over it. 

The woman smiled a little, shaking her head at what she must have taken as a pathetic come-on. “Yeah,” she answered. “Five seconds ago.”

“You’re sure?” he asked, leaning forward.

She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Yep,” she answered, the word popping off those luscious, pink lips of hers.

He wondered how they tasted. They weren’t smothered in lipstick, so an au-natural kind of girl, then. A chapstick perhaps; maybe vanilla or peppermint, and he’d be able to taste it on his lips afterward, the scent lingering in his nose.

She seemed to ignore his rapidly-derailing train of thoughts and leaned over the table, looking up past the edge of the tent and into the morose sky. It was as though the clouds themselves had descended, covering the landscape in a threadbare, gray blanket. “Sucks for business, but we need it,” she told the sky. “Maybe someone up there’s looking out for us.”

He remembered to close his mouth then. “I doubt it,” he answered easily. She shot him a curious look, her eyes darting over his figure. “Lucifer. Morningstar,” he introduced.

Her face fell. “ _You’re_ Lucifer.”

He tilted his head, confused. “Not what you expected?” 

“No,” she said, shaking her head and huffing out a small laugh. “Sorry. I wasn’t expecting _you_ ,” she explained, then dropped back to her knees, shoving aside the tablecloth.

“Darling, there’s no rush. We can go back to mine first, if you like.”

She pulled out a crate. “Boy, you are not subtle, at all.”

“Sorry?”

She rose, smacking a wooden crate into his chest. “Mr. Morningstar,” she said as he took it, understanding slowly dawning on his face. “Enjoy.” She turned away to the child, speaking in hushed tones.

“That’s it?” he asked. 

She turned back around. “Do you need something else?”

He shifted the weight of the crate lower, covering his hips. “Don’t you need payment of some sort?”

“It’s already paid for,” she said, turning back.

He shifted uncomfortably, unwilling to go back out into the rain and, strangely, more unwilling to leave the tent for – other reasons. “Are you sure we haven’t met before? I can swear I’ve seen you naked.”

The woman stiffened.

“Have we had sex?” he asked, genuinely trying to figure out where he had seen her from.

She shook her head, turning around. “Okay. We’re done here.” 

“Will you at least do me the honor of sharing your name?” he asked quickly, desperate to remember as she strode purposefully to his side. 

She took in a deep breath, shaking out her head as though surprised by something. “The fact that I’ve been supplying your restaurant for at least three years and you still don’t even know my name tells me about I need to know about you. So,” she finished, grabbing his arm to direct him back out.

Except she grabbed exactly the one spot on his body that didn’t yearn for her touch.

He shut his eyes against the sudden agony and let out a pained breath, his body involuntarily dropping the arm. He let go of the crate and she was there, lightning fast, grabbing it before it tilted any further.

He stared in shock at her sudden proximity. 

“Are you okay?” she asked, as he tried to control his breathing through the pain.

“Fine,” he lied, reluctantly moving to bring his hand back to the edge of the crate, covering hers. 

Her hand lingered for a moment, warm beneath his, as her eyes searched his face. Slowly, she pulled away, allowing him to take the weight. 

To his surprise, she let her hand rest lightly upon his forearm. “You’re sure?”

He swallowed. “As I said,” he found himself saying, the words coming from his mouth without thought. “And why should I know your name?” he asked.

Her hand fell away.

“We have several vendors,” he explained, stepping hastily back out into the rain. “And Maze handles logistics. Why should I know who any of you are?”

She nodded, hardening. Her gaze dropped to the wet concrete somewhere between them.

It was with sudden, perfect clarity, like a lightning strike, that he understood exactly what she must have been feeling in that moment. It may have been an actual, literal lightning strike, for all he knew it probably would take divine intervention to get him to see from another’s point of view. 

Disappointment, sure. In herself, for not standing out more, for not being important enough to be known, to be appreciated. For being a means to an end. For being a service. A product.

The thought had him stepping back, alarmed. “I didn’t mean –”

“Yeah, you did,” she interrupted. “And it’s… it just is. Thank you for your business, Mr. Morningstar,” she said, lifting a hand in goodbye. “Let me know when you need more.”

She turned away and he looked up at the sign. A simple, white laminate banner stretched across the top of the tent, in print lightyears clearer than Maze’s sloppy writing. 

“Decker Family Farms,” he read aloud.

She had taken up a clipboard and was staring down at it with forced casualness. “That’s me.”

She looked up at his silence.

Lucifer stood still, his expression distant.

“Chloe,” she said. 

He blamed the shiver on the rain.

-

Lucifer returned to Paradiso, determined to keep his expression as haughty and arrogant as possible to cover the sheepishness and embarrassment threatening to reveal itself. He tossed his keys to the head waiter and told him to gather a few people to unload from the car; the young man wordlessly obeyed, flashing a teeth-whitener smile that struck him more like the bared teeth of a cornered animal.

Lucifer shook his head, clearing himself of the image, and searched for Maze. 

He found her in the freezer, taking stock. 

“Maze,” he deadpanned.

She slowly turned on her heel to face him, a bored expression on her face.

“Why is there a goat.”

The carcass hung from a meat hook, the shape unmistakable.

“It was a gift,” she answered, turning back around.

“From who? My enemies?”

“Just because you got sick once doesn’t mean the rest of the world doesn’t appreciate it. I’m going to make curried goat stew with it.”

He blanched. “That nearly killed me.”

“Don’t be such a wuss,” she chided, returning to the task at hand. 

“Three days,” he reminded her, “in the desert. Alone!” He shook his head at the memory.

She declined to comment.

He sighed and snapped the clipboard from her hand, looking over what she had written and asking a few questions. By the time she looked back at him – really, looked – he knew that he had been forgiven. 

That fact lifted a heavier weight off his heart than he had anticipated.

It wasn’t until the lunch rush was dying down that someone slid him a plate of fresh cut strawberries, to top the panna cotta he was plating.

He stared.

The red fruit, stark against the white of the plate, stared back. 

Lucifer hadn’t entirely forgotten about the encounter. It had just been pushed to the back of his mind, somewhere between the knowledge that it was Thursday and that he was going to have to renew his work Visa, a task he had been putting off, sure that his father would arrive soon and he wouldn’t need to bother with it.

Silently, he took a halved fruit and popped it into his mouth. Its flavor, red and sweet and a little childish, burst along with her name and the endless blue of her eyes. 

That woman, he thought, _the_ woman, as though she were only missing the bright, yellow-gold that made up the primary colors. Had the day not been gray he was sure to have seen it; light pressing upon her face, warming her skin, warm beneath his touch – 

The touch he hadn’t yet felt – 

He hadn’t seen the blue of clear, daytime sky in a long, long time. His life revolved around dawn and dusk, the hard stroke of midnight more familiar than the gentle caress of sunlight.

“Chef?” asked the line cook. “Everything okay?”

Lucifer slowly straightened, dragging his gaze from the plate to the man. “Why do people keep asking me that?”

The young man’s eyes widened, unsure how to answer. Lucifer saw fear there, as readable as a book, and knew that he had put it there. It wiped the taste from his mouth, replacing it with another. 

Bitter.

“They’re perfect,” he assured. “Go ahead,” he said, dreamingly drifting away as the expediter barked out an order. In a daze, Lucifer unbuttoned his jacket, hung it up, grabbed his suit jacket, and left out the back door.

Four of the line cooks stilled their movements, watching out of the corners of their eyes, ready to return to work if he turned around.

He did not. 

 

“Decker farms, Dan speaking,” the man on the other line answered, as Lucifer aimlessly paced in his living room.

“Hello,” he drew out. “This is Lucifer Morningstar.”

He waited. 

No response.

He felt his brows furrow, curious and a little put-off.

“I’d like to place an order,” he said rapidly, gesturing with his free hand as though to tell the voice on the other end to hurry up. He listened to a shuffle of papers, and the man placing the phone against his shoulder. 

“Awesome,” he said. “Go ahead.”

Lucifer stilled, suddenly nervous. “Actually, is Ms. Decker there?”

“Yeah, hold on,” he said, and Lucifer found himself breathing a sigh of relief.

Which didn’t make any sense. 

“Yo, Chlo,” Dan called out, the sound muffled by the phone being pulled away. “Morningstar,” he answered, to a question Lucifer couldn’t quite make out.

There was a short pause before Lucifer heard the phone being passed, and he perked up. 

“Hello?” said Chloe.

“Have you thought about my question?” he asked quickly.

“Your… question.”

He resumed pacing. “Where I know you from.”

She huffed out a breath, and he imagined her shaking her head. “No, Lucifer. We haven’t had sex.”

The man’s voice returned, and Lucifer’s shoulders bounced as he silently chuckled, imagining the other man’s reaction. 

His voice came back on the line. “Who is this?”

“I told you. Lucifer Morningstar. Were you deprived of oxygen as a fetus?”

“Listen, you imbecile,” the man seethed, and Lucifer suppressed a smirk. “I don’t care who you are, and I don’t need business from someone who wants to make dirty phone calls to my wife in the middle of the afternoon, alright?”

Chloe’s voice protested in the background, saying his name is exasperation. 

“I would say it’s hardly dirty, but as you work on a farm, I suppose you would know. Daniel,” he added.

The man’s voice lowered threateningly. “Chloe is the mother of my child, you –”

Lucifer stilled, remembering the child in the booth. Children were ubiquitous enough in those places – and, unfortunately, many others – that he didn’t stop to think that she might be her child. They looked nothing alike, for one thing. He couldn’t care less about the “wife” thing.

He heard a commotion as Chloe took the phone back, and listened as Dan stomped off. 

“Okay. So. Sorry,” she started, haltingly. 

“You’re married?” he asked, wondering if that was the pesky reason she had been so put off in their first meeting.

“Not… exactly. Not that it’s any of your business. And, yeah. That wasn’t very professional. Sorry.” 

“No apology necessary,” Lucifer placated. “Is he that fiery in bed?”

“You really don’t stop, do you?”

“Not even when I’m dead,” he answered, smiling. “And you’re in the habit of not answering any of my questions, just so you’re aware. Horrible trait.”

“You are really not used to anyone telling you ‘no,’ are you.”

He tilted his head in an answer, and even though she couldn’t see it, he could hear her smile. 

“Do you want to place an order, or just harass me at work?” she asked.

“Which would you prefer?” He heard her sharp breath of a laugh. Incredulous or otherwise, it had him smiling, too. “Will you be at the market Sunday?”

“Yes.”

“She answers!”

“Don’t get too excited, buddy. I’m there every Sunday. Not that you’d know.”

He stared out toward the skyline, distant. “I suppose I’ll see you then,” he told her. “Ms. Decker.”

“Lucifer,” she said warily, by way of goodbye.

He hung up, saving the number in the phone, and trying very hard to ignore the lightness in his chest. How long had it been since he’d done more than just got through the next few hours, the next workday, the next week? He flipped the phone over in his hands, trying to remember the last time he had looked forward to something. Something other than the next cigarette, the next high, the next orgasm.

The last time he had looked forward to someone. Someone whose name he tasted in his mouth, light as air and twice as wanted.

It tasted like strawberries.


	5. Chapter 5

The next few days came and went. Lucifer stuck to his normal routine – work, party, repeat – unwilling to betray to anyone (or himself) that his heart wasn’t really in it, that all he was doing was making the hours pass faster until he found himself facing down the Goliath of the market, armed only with coffee.

Two to-go coffees, in fact, because – 

Because.

He quickly spotted the blonde woman, who was chatting amiably and handing over a small, brown paper sack to a customer. She wore simple blue jeans that managed to hug everywhere - were he not already a leg man, Lucifer surely would have just been converted - and a white, checkered top with the sleeves neatly rolled up, her hair rolling down and over her shoulders in waves.

There was the gold. He should have noticed, earlier.

Her body was, without saying, _divine,_ but it was her smile that beamed like the light through the clouds.

Rapturous.

Frantic waving from a booth across and a little down caught his eye, and he glanced over to see a smallish Latina woman with a jaunty ponytail behind a booth, waving her arm in the air as though she were in a concert. He glanced away, steeling himself to approach, when the waving went up again.

He looked. 

She gestured exaggeratedly for him to come to her, her expression amused but a little exasperated at his reluctance. He approached through the crowd, glancing over his shoulder to ensure the Decker woman hadn’t seen him yet. She hadn't.

The woman smiled broadly and spoke as he closed in the last few steps.

“Finally!” she said happily. “Lucifer, right?”

He smiled genuinely at the recognition, a little relieved that it wasn’t a ploy to get him over to purchase her wares.

“I’m Ella,” she introducing, coming around the table set up – selling honey and jams, complete with an observational bee hive, which drew in a score of children – to enwrap him in a bone-crushing hug, to which he stared down at her bewilderedly and tried not to spill either drink in his hand.

She stepped back, beaming, and released him. “So are you like, a vegan or something?” she asked, gesturing toward his Burberry-clad self. “ _Morningstar_?”

“If you please, Ms…?”

“Lopez.”

“Ms. Lopez. Rest assured, all the meat I put into my mouth is quite real.”

She laughed her way back around the table, quickly multitasking as she took cash, bagged an item, answered a question and continued to speak to him all the same. “Well, I guess we can’t help our names. I just thought maybe it was the same family. So did Chloe, actually.”

“You know Ms. Decker?” he asked, his heart picking up pace.

Maybe he was coming down with something.

“Hell yeah I know her! We all kind of know each other, here,” she explained, gesturing vaguely around her. She continued multitasking in a flurry of motion, which he ignored as he looked back at the subject of their conversation. He caught the child’s eye, who began to make her way across, only to be stopped by a man in the middle of the street.

“Here,” Ella said, thrusting a brown cup holder at him. He lifted both hands as though to say he’d got it, but she simply plucked the cups from his hands, sticking them securely in the holders before adding two more cups to it. “Tea,” she explained, meeting his eyes to ensure he was listening and pointing. “Cherry Marzipan, sweetened with local honey, and Blackberry Buzz, with raw local. You look like a Blackberry kind of guy.”

He took it from her, confused. 

“Chloe’s favorite,” she whispered, leaning in conspiratorially.

“Ah,” he managed, and began to dig into his jacket pocket.

She waved him off. “Ah, it’s on me. She deserves it,” she said with a knowing wink, turning away to speak to a young boy who had approached, asking about the queen.

Lucifer took the cup holder with a shrug, balancing the new weight in his hand. The child was still stuck in the middle of the street, listening to the man, but her eyes scarcely leaving Lucifer. 

Lucifer smiled, eager for another encounter with the man who made Chloe a “Ms.”

He stopped just short of the man’s back. “Daniel,” he said. The man whirled around, looking like a deer in the headlights. The child peeked out from behind him and rushed to Lucifer's side, throwing her arms around his waist and holding on.

Hugs, it appeared, were becoming a regular occurrence in his life, though she was squeezing a bit harder than Ella, if that were possible.

“No,” said the man, and Lucifer could see that the shorter man was holding an empty leash. He ducked his head and tried to make a hasty exit, but Lucifer’s hand on his chest stopped him. 

“You’re not the child’s father?” he asked.

“You’re not either?” asked the man in return, glancing down at the girl, still attached at Lucifer’s hip.

She tugged at him and he leaned down closer. “He lost his puppy,” the child whispered, and he noticed then the current of fear running in her dark eyes. “He wanted my help finding it.”

Lucifer felt his fingers curl, gripping the front of the man’s shirt.

“Please, take this,” he told the child, lowering the drinks. She took it in both hands, carrying it carefully. “And run back to your mother, child.”

He tried to give her a small smile, but she darted around them too quickly for her to see. 

(Lucifer did not see that Chloe, shocked, retrieved the container from the child and followed her small, pointing finger back to the two men as she spoke.)

Lucifer dragged his gaze back up to the man, who had lifted his hands, placating. “Hey man,” he repeated. “Just lost my dog.”

“Sure,” said Lucifer, seemingly sympathetic. “And I’m the Devil.”

The man had no time to react before Lucifer had swung a wide arc with his other arm, his hand curled into a tight fist. It contacted with his jaw with a sickening pop, and the man collapsed to the pavement, barely conscious.

Lucifer brushed off the front of his suit, ignoring the pain in his hand. He had learned a thing or two from Mazikeen, it seemed, though he hadn’t much opportunity to practice. Not as of late, anyway. He smiled down at the crumpled, moaning creature at his feet, before lifting his gaze toward where he was sure the child had run. 

To find Chloe staring at him, slack-jawed.

A couple of people had stopped in their tracks, watching. “Paedo,” he told them, pointing down as he walked away. The few people making to help the man straightened up and away.

He didn’t bother turning around to see what happened after that.

“Ms. Decker,” he crooned as he approached, willing his heart to slow. “Hello again.”

He plucked the container from her hands, setting it on an empty spot at the end of the table as she blinked, watching the scene behind him. He took out each cup and began to offer them to her. “Single malt latte?” he asked. She narrowed her eyes, looking back to him. “Single malt cappuccino?”

He took in her silence.

“Both for me, then,” he decided, lifting them out. He lifted another cup in offering. “Cherry Marzipan, from that frightening little woman across the way?”

That she took, slowly, and he beamed at his success. He saw Chloe lift the cup in thanks, and turned in time to see Ella jauntily waving at them. He shook his head at her enthusiasm.

He decided not to waste another moment not looking at the person he came here for. He watched her try to hold back a small smile, shaking her head at something, and he looked in time to see Ella quickly aborting a fanning motion toward her hips. 

Chloe directed her child to sit and stay put, eyeing her. “I think I’m going to have _another_ long talk with Trixie about strangers when we get home.”

Lucifer stared. “That’s a hooker’s name.”

“What’s a hooker?” asked the child.

“Ask your mother.”

Chloe placed a soft hand on his arm, gaining his attention. She held it there, giving it a small squeeze as she spoke. “Thank you.”

He shyly ducked his head as her eyes bored into him, studying his expression. He faltered, trying to think of something to say. 

“You didn’t place an order,” she reminded him, taking back her hand and holding the cup in both, warming herself. A few passers-by paused to admire the fruits, but none were stopping long enough to interrupt them. 

Lucifer found himself looking down the table at the bounty, and had an idea.

“I don’t need to,” he decided, catching the flicker of concern in the woman’s gaze. “I’ll take it,” he finished, lifting a hand to the table with a flourish.

She did a double-take. “Take, what, exactly?” she asked.

“All of it,” he said seriously. “Though it certainly won’t all fit in the Corvette. When can you deliver?”

Her jaw dropped. “You’re serious.”

He beamed, clapping his hands together excitedly and stepping around to admire the brightly-colored fruits. “I’m always serious when it comes to food.”

“Like to play chef, do you?” she asked as she laughed, disbelieving. 

He reveled in the buyout sound. “Oh, I just like to play in general."

She shook her head. “You’re kind of impulsive, you know that?”

“Just one of my many charms, I’m afraid,” he answered.

She hummed and lifted the cup to her lips, stifling a smile behind it.


	6. Chapter 6

Together they had loaded what they could into the Corvette’s trunk, Chloe promising to bring the rest to Paradiso in the morning. He may not have been as subtle as he would’ve liked in ensuring that it would _her_ bringing it, but she smiled and promised, and he returned to the restaurant, the car a little heavier and his chest a little lighter.

By Sunday’s end, he elected to stay behind instead of joining the others at a bar, citing some excuse. He noted how the staff left without trying to persuade him to do the same, and tried not to think too hard on it. Thinking, after all, had never been one of his strong suits.

Paradiso was closed Mondays, leaving only Maze, Lucifer, and a rotating line cook in the restaurant, preparing sauces and meats, baking bread and other foods that needed extra time to cook or cool. Except Lucifer had booted out the man who was supposed to be working alongside him that morning – he having started the fire that graced Lucifer with its presence, and Maze – knowing Maze – wouldn’t be returning until far past the crack of dawn. He should really have more than just the three of them there, but Lucifer couldn’t help lording over the kitchen, wanting to get his hands into everything, do everything himself.

To delegate would be to give up control.

As the staff left, they shut off all the lights out front. He remained in the back, turning on the portable speaker and starting his personal playlist, losing himself in the work.

It didn’t matter that his back was aching, his muscles tight down two neat, familiar lines. There was work to be done, and he was wired, that kind of edge-of-the-knife mania that allowed him to keep such strange hours, to barely sleep and then to absolutely crash when he did. It was nothing new. He could not remember being without that agitated energy, his fingers and mind always itching to do something. 

Sometime in the night he abandoned the heavy jacket dragging down his shoulders and rolled up his sleeves, donning a dark blue apron instead. The coarse fabric complimented the dark gray of his dress shirt, a little wrinkled down the front from being worn for so long, but nothing a quick stop at the dry-cleaners couldn’t fix. He had replaced the bandage that morning, the gauze covering the underside of his forearm, annoying as the tape on his skin pulled and stretched. 

It was more embarrassing than uncomfortable, but Lucifer was no stranger to the aggravation of how long such things took to heal. 

He ran his hands through his hair as he turned in the small space, taking it in as he waited. Pots dangled over the stainless steel table in the center of the room, clinking together when brushed by wandering, restless fingers. Open, metal shelving flush against the walls carried bins of all sorts of bits – thermometers and timers, measuring spoons and cups, pitchers and bottles and dry food storage and more. The vent above the stoves was on, droning out any ambient sound. 

Closing his eyes, Lucifer allowed the music to drag him away to another place. 

The two bottles of brandy, sitting on the table, called out to him.

He pushed down the thought. He had already drained them, for starters: they were for the blackberry brandy sauce, which he was currently waiting to simmer on the stove beside a pot of mango salsa and another of fruit compote. Handmade loaves of brioche were busy baking in the over below, filling the air with their sweet, buttery aroma. 

He swayed his hips slightly to the tune. 

The salsa, filled to the brim in a four-burner rondeau, had been boiling for long enough. The orange and blue flames licked up the sides of the pot as he stirred the wooden spoon through, reminding him more like a molten, boiling lake of fire. He held himself slightly away as he stirred, able to feel the heat against his stomach and his hands, if they strayed too far over to the side. 

He shut off the gas and tossed the spoon into a pile for the dishwasher, turning back to stir the blackberry sauce. 

The song changed. Bob Dylan’s "All Along the Watchtower" came through the small speaker. Lucifer’s fingers twitched, his body remembering how to play it on the piano.

He hadn’t touched a piano in… he couldn’t remember how long. The thought brought with it an unexpected sensation, like a fat man sitting on his chest – and not in the fun way.

He, like some of his sisters, had been classically trained musicians, and as a child he had been so sure that was the route his father was going to have him take.

He found himself singing to the sauce, eager to drown out the noise in his head.

 _There are many here among us, who feel life’s but a joke_ , he sang, his voice confident and rising in the empty space. _But you and I, we’ve been through that._

_This is not our fate, so let us stop talking falsely now. The hour’s getting late._ He paused, grabbing the spoon and mindlessly stirring, listening to the piano and swaying, waiting for the melody to return. He sang, ignoring Bob Dylan’s tinny voice through the small speaker. 

_All along the watchtower, princess kept the view._

_Other women, they came and they went,_

_Barefoot servants too._

_Outside in the cold distance, a wild cat did growl._

_Two riders were approaching,_

_And the wind began to howl._

The song ended and Lucifer stared into the pot, the dark sauce beginning to bubble and clinging to the sides, as sticky and red as blood. It drew him in, the pink foam clinging to the edges, like the froth he had too often found himself spitting into a sink after a fight with a brother or a stranger, the two overlapping more often than not. 

He stirred again but the foam still clung to the edges; the rich, almost sickly sweet scent of the blackberries, mixed with the brown, duller alcoholic smell of the hot brandy assaulted his nose, forcing him to lean away. 

Movement out of the corner of his eye caught him off guard, a small smile coming across his face, quickly wiped away. “Maze,” he began, lifting his face toward the door and using the back of his hand to wipe away a stray drop of sweat at his temple. 

He blinked in surprise. “What are you doing here?”

-

Chloe couldn’t help but feel a little bad for the guy. She could see how tired he was, his shirt a little rumpled, that familiar curve in the shoulder where she knew it felt like to hurt after leaning over something for too long, that bleariness in his eyes. He quickly retracted his hand, but she caught the plain, white gauze covering the bottom of his arm, forcing her to remember her callousness when she had grabbed at him to shove him back into the rain.

To be fair, he had just asked her if they’d had sex because he couldn’t remember her name, so.

She leaned against the doorway, folding her arms across her chest. “You asked me to deliver the rest, remember?”

“In the morning.”

“It is morning.”

He looked above her to the clock.

“Have you been here all night?” 

“Is Maze here?” he asked, instead of answering, reaching up to shut off the vent. Her ears adjusted to the sudden silence.

She lifted her shoulder in a shrug. “She’s getting the stuff. I offered, but she didn’t want my help this time, for some reason.” 

She was about to tell him that she and Maze had also heard him singing, and that he had a beautiful voice – and trying to decide if that was a normal thing people say to one another, people who were _definitely_ not interesting in starting anything, ever, when he interrupted her.

“You gave her your keys?” he asked quickly, striding to the space beside her and shoving open the door, looking out into the restaurant. The light from its windows at the front assaulted his eyes and he squinted, but he caught Mazikeen on her way out the front. “Maze!” he shouted. “Hang aan ń tak!”

Chloe looked up into his profile, suddenly close enough she could see the freckles on his neck, the tiny dot under the side of his bottom lip where a piercing had long-since healed, the line where his sideburn met stubble. She found her hand hovering over his stomach, his apron smeared with the dried juices from fresh berries and tacky with flour, something that should have definitely not at all been as damn arousing as it was. She could smell him, was all – he was very close, nearly pressed up against her, and he was unfamiliar and new and all long, lean lines and perhaps a little something domestic about the mess, his obvious confidence in the space he seemed to own. 

His sharp bark of the name had her flinching and she took a step to the side, looking out the open door with him.

Maze only laughed, halfway out the front door. “Moenie die hoender ruk nie!” she threw over her shoulder.

“Don’t overdo what?” he asked, but she was gone. 

Lucifer shook his head, plastering on a default smile that was probably meant to be placating. He must not have realized, until that moment, how close she was.

He made no move to pull away. The swinging door shut behind him. “I swear that woman is half a demon, sometimes,” he explained, his voice dropping in the silence. “But I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

Chloe felt her heart sink into her stomach. “What will be fine?” she asked, risking enough to press a hand flat against his stomach, lifting herself and trying to look over his shoulder through the small, circular window.

He tensed under her touch.

“I assume you have car insurance?” he asked. 

She let her hand fall as she came back down, a little relieved that he had said nothing about it. 

And, maybe, a little disappointed, too. She was having fun, shooting him down.

He walked past her and back over to the stove, lifting a lid off a pot and shutting off the gas beneath it, giving it another stir. 

Chloe found herself still staring at the door, swallowing against the idea that something could happen to her truck – her gorgeous, red, Ford F-150 she had purchased two years ago when things were still good and she could definitely not afford any major repairs right now –

He sighed. “Take a seat,” he told her, gesturing to a stool on the other side of the center table, currently riddled with evidence of his long night alone; lemon and orange rinds, the ends of greens, a grater, a couple of scattered and emptied tupperwares, stained from use, the mostly-emptied brandy bottles and two chopping boards, complete with clippings from strawberries and the remnants of other berries, the sticky remains of which clung to the inside edge of a stainless steel bowl, and beneath, a thin layer of flour. 

“I didn’t know the owner was so involved,” she haltingly inquired, pulling out the stool and sitting, clearing off a space in front of her. 

Lucifer chuckled, his back to her. “I assure you, the owner has never stepped foot in this establishment.”

“But I thought –” she started, then stopped. “Oh.”

He checked on the contents of another pot and shut off the gas to that, as well. 

“What?” he asked, turning.

Chloe was pushing away a tupperware with more care than necessary, suddenly nervous. “I thought that’s why we hadn’t met,” she explained. “I usually meet chefs, not owners. Or, at least, I used to.”

He swiped his good arm across the table, collecting everything into a pile on the side. “But not lately?” he asked, reaching below him. She could hear him squeezing water out a rag before he lifted it to the table and wiping it down, smelling faintly of bleach. 

She moved her hands to her lap. 

It was embarrassing – too embarrassing – really, to tell, but he had that dark gaze fixed on her. She did not feel compelled to tell him, not exactly. 

Perhaps it was his attention she wanted. 

She still hadn’t decided if that was a good thing, or not. 

“There was an incident,” she told him, instead. “It’s a long story.”

“I think we’ve established that I live here,” he told her, circling a hand over the table.

He seemed genuinely interested, setting the rag away and pulling out a paper towel to wipe the table dry, making no move to go anywhere else. 

“Right. Well,” she started, steeling herself. “One of my neighbors. A partner, actually, of my dad’s, when he was still alive. They started the farms as organic, but about a year ago I noticed that they were starting to use some things that weren’t exactly right, but still selling everything the same, somehow skirting under the radar. It wasn’t something anyone else was looking into, and I confronted them, and I don’t know. Word got around. Actually, it’s part of the reason why Dan and I,” she faltered. “And now,” she laughed sadly, looking up toward the ceiling. “No one wants to work with me.”

He reached across, playfully touching her arm. “Well, I’m available.”

She smiled at that, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

The tiniest little Chloe, a few microns across and stuck somewhere deep in the recesses of her lizard brain, found herself jumping up and down excitedly in the void, shouting out _“How available?!”_

She tried to ignore it.


	7. Chapter 7

He couldn’t help how he looked at her, then. The center table could be a chef’s table, though he had never used it as such. Even with all his meetings and greetings and dealings, no one had been important enough for him to bring back here, to watch as he cooked. Not that it was an intimate process, given how many people it usually took. 

It would be more similar to divulging secrets to a stranger and waiting for their judgement. He had done it many times, but in his own kitchen found himself unwilling. Though he was usually more than willing to share his body and the finished products, never had he wanted to share his creative process.

With anyone.

He found liked her sitting there, her bright eyes glistening under the florescent lights, somehow making it look flattering.

He _really_ liked her sitting there.

“God, what am I doing here?” she said, her voice light and teasing. 

“That is the eternal question,” he agreed. 

“No, I mean here. In a kitchen, at seven-thirty in the morning. With you.”

“You tell me, Ms. Decker. Although, to be fair, Maze did just steal – borrow,” he quickly amended, “your vehicle.” 

Her eyes widened a bit at that, but she remained silent.

“Would you rather be in the restaurant?” he continued. “Because I can arrange that, actually.”

She shook her head, biting the inside of her lip as she took him in. He ran a hand through his hair and grimaced, feeling his usually impeccably-tamed curls escaping against the heat. He dropped his hand, an apologetic look on his face, but she only smiled. 

There was something beneath it. Not pity, not that he was overly familiar with it. It wasn’t enticing, a come-hither.

Just a smile.

At him. 

“Have you eaten?” he asked quickly. She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “I’ve been told people do that in the morning.”

“You don’t?” 

He shrugged.

“What’s that phrase? ‘Don’t trust a skinny chef?’”

He smiled darkly. “My addictions don’t include food, fortunately,” he answered, then winced at the ease in which he admitted such things. “But you didn’t answer my question. Again,” he quickly continued, hoping she’d ignore it.

“I’m more of a coffee kind of gal,” she proclaimed, but he caught her eyes darting behind him to the stove. 

“Well, it absolutely won’t do,” he told her, moving away to throw a clean pan on the stove. He rushed about, dashing to the pantry and refrigerator as though fearful she would slip out the door when he wasn’t looking. 

“Don’t let me put you out,” she called out after him.

He laughed, spinning on his heel to face her. “But I do so _love_ to put out, darling,” he answered, catching her shaking her heard before he turned back around.

He swiftly returned, laying out the contents of his arms: a carton of eggs, a small tub of crème fraiche, blocks of comté and fontina cheese. In the middle of it a timer went off; she searched for the sound, only to find that Lucifer had the small device in the pocket of his apron. He promptly shut it off and opened an over door, releasing a wave of heat and mouth-watering smells. He took out the pans, setting them aside on a wheeled cooling rack before pulling off a loaf, setting it on a plate between them to cool. 

She took everything in, wide-eyed. 

“Do you trust me?” he asked playfully.

“Not really.”

He blinked a few times, dropping his gaze. 

The answer shouldn’t have been a surprise, obviously. He chided himself for believing otherwise. They had only just met, after all, and God knows he wasn’t one to talk.

“Should I?” she asked.

He lifted his eyes to hers.

“Okay,” she sighed, as though it were some magnanimous acquisition. She set her chin on a fist. “Impress me.”

He found himself more than happy to rise to the challenge.

-

The scrambled eggs were delicious, covered in the fresh salsa still warm from the pot and atop thick slabs of bread, smothered with cheese and butter. It was simple and familiar, and yet so different from any she had made herself or eaten. Chloe felt herself beginning to understand the man’s style, his personality presented on a plate.

She insisted he eat with her, claiming it was far too much food for her to finish herself, and he obliged, settling his weight on his elbows as he leaned over the table. 

-

He would have been happy just to watch her eat. 

Not that it was a fetish, or anything – though he didn’t judge – he just… 

Just…

God, what the hell was happening to him?

She finished was she maintained to be her last bite – though there had been a couple of those – and smiled as she set down her fork, their conversation lulling as he took her in.

“So how often do you make breakfast?” she asked, her voice confident but her eyes sinking down to the plate.

“We aren’t open for breakfast,” he answered easily, tearing off another bit of bread and popping it into his mouth.

“No, I mean,” she began, then faltered. “You know.” He shook his head, not understanding. “You may have,” she started, then made sure she locked eyes. “A bit of a reputation. Is all.”

He beamed as he swallowed. Finally, all his work was beginning to pay off. “You asked about me? What did they say? All good things, I imagine.”

“I may have mentioned your name to a couple people, and people… talk. Seems like someone knows someone who knows you,” she explained, before shoving at him playfully. “And now you’re the one not answering questions.”

“Last time I made breakfast?” he confirmed, trying to think back.

He paused.

She remained silent as his brows furrowed and smile faded. 

“For Maze,” he decided, nodding his head as though to assure himself. “It must have been for Maze.”

“Like, yesterday?” she pressed, unsure.

“No,” he remembered. “We were in London. I remember,” he smiled a little. “We were both terribly hungover. She couldn’t even get herself out of bed. This was back when she was staying with me, when she hadn’t her own place yet. I made her a full English breakfast.” He chuckled at the memory, and what little he could recall of the night before. “She threw it in my face. That was the last time she tried absinthe, as far as I know.”

Chloe held only a small smile on her face, but her eyes betrayed something else. He couldn’t read it.

“Must’ve been nearly ten years ago, now,” he determined, shocked to hear the number himself.

In the silence, Lucifer heard someone come in the front. He quietly excused himself, aware of Chloe’s eyes on his back as he left the room.


	8. Chapter 8

Chloe was going to see it all end.

Their relationship had an expiration date, of that she was sure. It rapidly approached, the last Sunday she was going to have a tent at the market. 

She didn’t tell him.

Her pride wouldn’t let her.

Every Sunday morning, he was there. She convinced him to stop showing up first thing and at least allow her to get set-up first (especially after that first week, when he had arrived early and tried to help, resulting in a very confused Lucifer staring at what should have definitely not been an extra pole in his hand and Chloe trying desperately not to laugh at his insistence that she must have been putting it together wrong this whole time). 

The next week he arrived in the late morning, a coffee in hand for him and one of Ella’s teas for her. He arrived later each time, the other woman always animatedly talking to him about something. Chloe knew Lucifer enough to know that he would have just turned and left, had he not been interested in whatever she had to say. 

It was endearing, she had to admit, how he listened and engaged when others lost their patience, only able to tolerate Ella’s high spirits for short periods.

When he did finally make it over he would stand just under the tent but off to the side, speaking with her and interrupting when she chatted with customers, prompting a charmed laugh from them and an eyeroll from her as she tried to push him away. She realized, perhaps too late, that more people were coming by with him beside her. 

Closer beside her, each time.

It irked her, the ease in which he drew in people, but it wasn’t because of the smiles he gave them, or the self-assured way in which he spoke of her products, or the way their eyes lingered over the figure beneath his crisp suits. 

He must have felt it, because she felt him stand closer to her, touching her hand when he made a point or asked a question. She felt his eyes on her when someone else’s stayed on him for too long, prompting them to leave sooner than they’d like.

He always left with at least a crate of her produce, and always after the market closed at one o’clock.

She didn’t need a clock to let her know when it was time.

She had left Trixie with Dan that day, unwilling to have her daughter with her when Chloe made what she felt was her walk of shame, though none of the other vendors knew she was leaving. The girl had complained, not about missing the market, of course, but about missing the chance to see Lucifer. No matter how much Lucifer proclaimed, loudly, his revulsion of children (“terrible, taxing burdens,” he had called them, once), he never ignored her daughter or made her feel uneasy. 

In fact, Trixie had never hung around the tent more. And after that incident with the stranger, Chloe couldn’t be more grateful.

She kept watching the crowd, the after-lunch rush keeping her busy and distracting her thoughts until she saw her neighbors starting to shut down. 

She reminded herself how much of a hassle it all was anyway, loading everything into the truck every Saturday and getting up before dawn on Sunday mornings to get here and set up; the hours on her feet, the chill in the morning air biting through her jacket, the reliance on caffeine to get going. She reminded herself that it wasn’t her fault.

She didn’t believe a word of it.

“Ms. Decker,” Lucifer interrupted, “are you even listening to me?”

She could feel the treacherous catch in her throat, the prickle behind her eyes. 

It was over.

All this time, her whole life here, and it was ending without fanfare. 

She dragged her gaze back up to the man beside her. 

_No feelings_ , she reminded herself. _It’s only business._ Every crate of produce he bought from her was business. Every delivery she made to his restaurant was business, even if she found herself eating breakfast there more often than not. Every drink he brought her was just business. Every brush of his hand was business.

She wasn’t going to tell him that every crate he brought helped her pay her bills. That every delivery justified her not selling her truck. That every sip of tea reminded her she still had friends. That every touch grounded her in the moment, keeping her from falling into her thoughts.

But those thoughts couldn’t be held at bay, forever. 

“No,” she admitted, starting her closing-up routine.

“As I was saying,” he started again, “I should be getting back. _Saveur_ finally rescheduled, six weeks from now, and I need to find –” 

She felt the wave of emotion rising. The bitterness of nostalgia, and the inky blackness of fear, but mostly the drowning sensation of failure swelling up from beneath her.

“So why are you still here?” she asked, not able to bring her eyes to his.

“I’m sorry?” he asked, and she could hear the disbelieving smile in his voice.

She slammed the crate back down on the table with more force than necessary, trying to shock her system back into cooperating. He straightened at the sound and she closed her eyes, feeling her hands gripping tightly onto the wood.

“Just go,” she said, trying to keep her voice even.

He wasn’t moving. 

“Please,” she whispered.

By the time she opened her eyes, he was gone.

 

Chloe tore down the tent and filled up the truck alongside the rest of the vendors, smiling at the ones she knew better than others and chatting a bit about the crowd that day. She found an excuse to linger as they left, pulling out one-by-one until only a few remained. She watched a couple familiar, bored police offers remove the metal barriers from the middle of the street, opening it back up to traffic. She watched the market disappear and cars roll over her spot like waves over the sand, washing it away.

As though it had never existed, at all.

She leaned against the side of her truck and wrapped an arm around herself. 

_Business,_ she reminded herself, trying to square her shoulders. Be the person who had punched out a paparazzo after her father died. Her father, who started the business, who had been mugged and shot and killed while getting her a sandwich for her for after her acting class, after she told him she wanted to be something more than just a farmer.

As though it had been something to be ashamed about.

She buried her face in a hand, unable to hold back the flood any longer.


	9. Chapter 9

Lucifer fired three people that week, and the bump he snorted that morning was become more usual than unusual.

It wasn't about the girl. 

Well, it wasn't _all_ about the girl.

__

Lucifer had the distinct feeling he was about to watch it all end, and he couldn't shake the sensation of living on borrowed time any longer. 

__

These last few days he found himself high more often than not, unwilling to come down. It left him erratic and agitated as it wore off, his movements in the kitchen manic and his speech stuttering as he shouted out orders. By the end of Wednesday night, he found himself shaking in a bar bathroom, as though freezing cold; he couldn’t stop the shiver from wracking his body as he cut up another line.

__

He went home alone that night, and every night that followed.

__

Saturday evening, after his staff closed up, he found himself being driven home by a grumbling Maze, unsure what even transpired that night as she shoved him out of the passenger seat of his car. He stumbled to the door, squinting in the dim streetlight as he focused on finding the right key, hearing Maze behind him shutting the trunk. She appeared at his side, a small duffel bag slung over her shoulder, and snapped the keys from his hands, making quick work of the lock and turning on the center overhead light as they entered.

__

He followed her in, an ache behind his eyes at the light, his limbs heavy from exhaustion – but not so tired, it seemed, that it gaze couldn’t linger over the back of her form, her pert ass and thick thighs as she strolled confidently into his home, the thud of her boots muffled in the open space.

__

She tossed her duffel toward the couch and headed into the kitchen, taking the elastic out from her hair and shaking it out. 

__

He followed.

__

“Don’t even think about it,” she warned, reaching above her to open a cupboard. He ignored the threat, wrapping his arms around her waist from behind and pulling her flush to him. She let her arms fall back down, lightly covering his own. 

__

He swayed them a bit, brushing his nose into her hair, nuzzling her neck, breathing in her smell.

It was difficult to describe; she'd never been one to wear perfumes, but her natural scent pushed into a deep part of his brain. It wasn't soothing, but primal - dark and yielding, as though some gently dozing predator in his mind eased itself awake, sensing blood in the air.

Maze was copper, and metallic, and a little too sharp to grip onto, even though he was on the edge and just barely holding on as it was. 

__

“Lucifer,” she said, patting his arm. 

__

He hummed lightly in response, already feeling the tell-tale tightening in his trousers. He pushed up against her, moving her forward until she bumped into the counter. Her head fell back onto his shoulder, a small breath escaping. He tightened his grasp, his hips already grinding into her.

__

It had been too many days, too long, and though tired, his body was positively vibrating at her proximity. 

__

He could tell the crash was imminent, but perhaps he could get some fun in before it hit. Maze – of all people – would be understanding. He kissed her shoulder, her neck, his teeth grazing her earlobe, shallowly thrusting, eliciting the lightest of moans from her throat. He trusted her enough to know she wouldn’t think any differently of him if he couldn’t perform to his highest standards.

__

Her hand wrapped around his, and he stilled at the thought. 

__

He trusted her. Even when he was like this. Even when he normally couldn’t bear the thought of anyone in his home, in his bed, when he was less than perfect – and, right now, he was far from perfect. 

__

He hadn’t realized she was gripping onto his hand tightly, her fingernails digging into the flesh, saying his name. He pulled back enough for her to turn around, still wrapped in his arms. 

__

Perhaps the crash was more imminent than he thought, because the look on her face was already plunging him into darkness, leaving him on unsteady footing.

__

“Maze?” he asked, unsure.

__

Carefully, keeping her eyes on his, she pushed at the lapels of his jacket until it slid off his arms. She collected it before it hit the ground, draping it over her arm. Silently, she tugged at his belt, freeing it from its loops, holding it in one hand as she took his in the other, leading him out of the kitchen and toward his bedroom, shutting off the light as she walked.

__

“Maze,” he tried again, feeling the words bubbling in his throat, trying very hard not to be choked off. “I can’t.” 

__

She shot a look over her shoulder, one he couldn’t read. In his defense, she had a lot of looks.

__

“Take off your shoes,” she commanded, pushing him until he was sitting on the edge of the bed. He obeyed, straining to focus on the laces until bending at the waist made him dizzy, and he kicked them off instead. Maze unselfconsciously undressed in front of him, down to her black, lace panties. His eyes dragged over her dark skin as she momentarily disappeared into his walk in closet, coming out in one of his more worn t-shirts, tossing a pair of sleep pants onto his chest. He managed to shimmy out of the rest of his clothes before throwing them on, thankful for the steadiness of the bed beneath him. 

__

She crawled into the space beside him, shoving aside the covers with enough forcefulness that he found himself laughing, as though his thousand-thread count sheets were a personal affront to her sensibilities. He slid into the space beside her, holding himself above her beneath the covers. 

__

(No sense in not trying, after all.) 

__

She swatted at his shoulder until he collapsed back down, and she shut off the light, lying on her back.

__

“What are we doing?” he asked.

__

“Going to sleep.” 

__

He whined. “But that’s boring!”

__

He could see her close her eyes in the dim light, but opened them again quickly, as though steeling herself for something to come. After a moment, she opened her arms and gestured for him to come closer. 

__

Cautiously, he scooted closer, draping an arm across her body and settling his head on her pillow, her other arm stretched out under his neck and coming around to wrap around his shoulder.

__

Never his back. She knew better.

__

Softly, she let her other hand rest on his forearm, her thumb making smooth circles on his skin. His leg settled heavily atop hers, and she brought her other one up to meet it.

__

“Why?” he asked, feeling his breathing steady at the small ministrations, though he had to shut his eyes against the swirling it created in his mind.

__

“A friend –”

__

“You have friends?”

__

She smacked his arm playfully. “A friend,” she began again. “Reminded me something. About you.”

__

“Do I know this friend?” he asked.

__

“Definitely not. And I’m gonna keep it that way, cause if she takes one look at you and decides to sleep with you, I’m going to have to cover up more holes in the wall, and she’s already asking what my sudden interest in art is.”

__

“Never knew you were the jealous type, Maze,” he murmured, already feeling the deep pull of sleep.

__

“I’m not,” she protested. He smiled, and sighed into her hair. “I’m not,” she repeated, more softly, a smile on her lips for somebody else. 

__

“What’d she say?” he asked, always eager to hear what other people thought of him, especially if it resulted in getting a woman to bed.

__

Not usually like this, mind you, but he was going to take what he could get.

__

“That even though you may think you are, and are definitely an asshole about it,” she began, then her voice wavered, and she stopped. 

__

Maze was quiet for long enough that he couldn’t be sure if he heard her, or if he had already fallen asleep when she spoke and he made it up. Whatever the case, her voice echoed deep in his mind.

__

“You’re not alone.”

__

-

__

He slept through the night for the first time in a long time, and woke slowly, listening. Nothing in particular had awoken him, no sounds or smells of cooking or showering, no television, no construction outside or angry, honking car horns. Maze was most likely at the restaurant, going about her normal business. It was preferred, like that. He could confess to her, in the dark, when they were alone, all those nagging thoughts and fears. 

__

In the day, though, it just made things awkward.

__

He stretched, feeling still a little off-kilter. Nothing he couldn’t handle, certainly, and nothing he hadn’t felt before. He turned over, intending to lean over the edge of the bed and dig through his pants for his phone, when he caught the clock. 

__

It was nearly noon.

__

Now, on a _normal_ day, he would spring to his feet, shower and dress quickly, and speed to the restaurant, knowing full well that no one there was going to say a damn thing about it to _him_ , but still holding that fear ingrained into him from his youth. 

__

That fear of disappointment, of being yelled at, of being berated for tardiness and anything else they could come up with.

__

But this was _Sunday_ , and therefore not a normal day, and Lucifer could only stare.

__

The digital clock changed from 11:42 to 11:43.

__

Chloe was probably wondering where he was, and that thought was more frightening than any knife-wielding chef, or his – 

__

He struggled to his feet, nearly tripping over the sheets as he slipped from the room. Even if he left right this second, with L.A. traffic he would still probably only make it there when she was leaving, but the Hell with it – he was going to try, anyway.

__

He threw out a suit and sped through traffic when he could, arriving just as some of the vendors were starting to load their things into trucks. He tracked over where the Decker Farms booth was supposed to be… only to scan over the space again, confused.

__

It seemed someone else had occupied that space. Perhaps that was a usual thing, to change locations; he scanned over the rest of the tents, searching. 

__

Coming up empty.

__

That couldn’t be right.

__

He marched over to Ella’s tent. She was busy with putting her jars into boxes and onto a cart. 

__

“Ms. Lopez,” he began, startled by her suddenly whipping around to face him, fear in her eyes.

__

She visibly relaxed upon seeing who it was, and carefully placed another couple of jars away. “Lucifer!” she said, a smile broadening on her face. “Hey, what’s –”

__

“I don’t see Ms. Decker’s tent,” he interrupted. 

__

“Yeah,” Ella agreed sadly, causing Lucifer’s heart to jump with anxiety. He tampered it down. “But, hey, like I tried to tell her, whatever you’re going through, it’s all got to be part of His plan, right?”

__

“Whose plan?”

__

“You know,” she tilted her head from side to side, briefly glancing upward. “I mean, even the most powerless of creatures serve a purpose, right?” she continued, unveiling her observational hive and spinning it around. “Check out the bees. They work themselves to death, _literally_. Honey bees only live for like, two months, tops, and that whole time they’re trying to take care of everything around them, a never-ending, biologically-driven, innate battle against inevitable entropy and death.”

__

“What does this have to do with Ms. Decker?”

__

“The point,” she emphasized, “is that even though Chloe works really hard, all the time, maybe we can’t change how everything changes around us. You never know when your rock bottom pain, and humiliation, can end up helping others.” 

__

She resumed her take-down of the tent, and he shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

__

“Welcome to the club, buddy.”

__

“No, I don’t understand what that has to do with Ms. Decker. What are you talking about, rock bottom? She was fine just last week!”

__

Ella sighed, offering him a sad smile. “Chloe keeps a lot of things here,” she said, patting the space over her heart.

__

“Her breasts?”

__

She rolled her eyes. “Dude! Her chest. She’s not super open about stuff. No one else here knows about what happened.”

__

Lucifer could feel his agitation rolling off him in waves, and he was bewildered by the fact that the woman across from him wasn’t reacting to it. “ _What happened_?” he asked again, through gritted teeth.

__

“Man, it’s not my place to tell. But,” she stopped him before he could open his mouth to protest, “You could ask her yourself. At my party. Saturday.”

__

He reluctantly complied, and she quickly found a scrap piece of paper, writing down her address. She punched him good naturedly in the shoulder as he took it. “C’mon,” she teased, “The infamous Lucifer Morningstar loves a good party, am I right?”

__

He tucked the note away. “Am I required to cook?”

__

“Nope!”

__

“Then I will see you both there,” he promised, and let her return to her duties. 

__

He could just call Chloe, but crashing a party was _much_ more his style.

__


	10. Chapter 10

It was… not what he expected.

Ella’s house was a tiny little cottage, painted the brightest of blues in the dirtiest part of town. The houses beside her had overgrown lawns, cracked concrete steps, closed-in patios. He parked the Corvette as close as he could to her home, eyeing the other cars on the block warily. Not that he was overly attached the machine, but it was a nice piece of equipment, and he definitely appreciated having reliable transportation.

Also, it went really fast, and he was a sucker for the wind in his hair.

He pushed aside the metal gate which came to his waist; to his surprise, it didn’t creak, but glided in one smooth motion. As soon as he passed the threshold, he was transported.

The young woman’s front lawn was completely covered in flowers. 

Pale, blue and pink Hydrangeas reached up, up, up at the fence, blocking the view of the street and neighbors. Dense, green foliage barely masked a stone bird bath, filled to the brim with glittering, clear water. A few small, unassuming birds preened themselves nearby. Butterflies flickered in and out of the green, their wings catching the lingering afternoon sunlight before disappearing.

Lucifer traveled forward on the path, finding himself lifting a hand to brush his fingers along the green, his lips quirking in a disbelieving smile. He caught sight of his black suit and the white shirt, peeking from beneath. So stark, so out of place. He retracted his hand, smoothing down the front of his jacket before reaching inside, removing his flask and taking a long pull from it as he knocked. 

The door ripped open almost immediately, startling him. More startling, however, was the sudden, bone-crushing hug he found himself on the receiving end of, as Ella burst out of her doorway, laughing. She pulled back, looking into his face but still holding onto his waist, giddy.

He strained to read romance into it, but there was only happiness in her expression. 

He wasn’t sure what to do. No one embraced him – except for her, and that child, now – without expecting something more.

Thankfully, she let go, and he weakly lifted the bottle of wine in his hand, hoping it would be distracting enough that he could slip the flask back into his pocket without her noticing.

It wasn’t, of course. Her small, dark eyes caught the movement, but she took the bottle from him without mentioning it, turning around and holding it up for others to see. “Lucifer’s here!” she called out, pulling him inside.

It shouldn’t have been possible, but there seemed to be more greenery inside. Plants hung from small pots, suspended from the ceiling, their vines draping lazily downward; pots of every size and color littered every available space. He took in the small space, the few strides of her living room, and behind that, a kitchen; to his right, there appeared to be a bedroom and a bathroom.

Everything was so soft and worn and bright and _lived in_ that he couldn’t help the spring of jealously bubbling in his chest, remembering his open, airy home, all white and black and offering none of these comforts. He spotted Maze, sitting on the couch and very close to a smartly dressed blonde woman, her dark, thick glasses stark against her pale skin.

His eyes traveled over the rest of the room, stepping in further. “I didn’t know what kind of party it was,” he started, speaking a little louder to be heard over the music, reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out three small, ziplock bags, “so I brought a little of everything.”

Maze reached out, gesturing for him to throw it to her; Lucifer obliged, tossing a bag with a couple of small pills.

Ella’s hand darted out, intercepting the package so quickly he barely saw it. She pushed into him, holding the bag to his chest, her eyes darting wildly. “Are you crazy?” she whispered harshly. “My abeula will kill me, if she sees this!”

“You live with your grandmother?” Lucifer questioned, raising an eyebrow.

Ella stepped back, sheepish. She opened her mouth to answer, when another interrupted.

Chloe stepped out from the kitchen, a little unsteady on her feet, wine glass in hand. “Her grandmother’s ghost.”

Maze and the other woman snickered on the couch, and Ella shot around, accusingly. ‘It’s not funny!” she argued. She turned back to Lucifer, explaining. “This is her place. She passed away a year ago, but I swear she’s still here. I still hear her voice, for one thing, and I get these dreams…”

She continued to speak, but her voice trailed off.

Lucifer had eyes only for Chloe.

She smiled at him, privately, also ignoring the conversation happening around them. His eyes flickered down to her glass, mostly empty now. He interrupted Ella long enough to take the bottle back from her, stepping past her to move into the brightly-lit kitchen. A knock at the door had Ella flying past him anyway, and he caught her opening it to reveal a collection of young, Latino men, who Ella immediately began berating in Spanish for being late.

Brothers, he understood. Never showed up when you wanted them to.

Chloe entered the kitchen from the other side as he found a corkscrew, trying to keep his movements steady as he opened it. Chloe drained the rest of her glass, handing it to him to fill. 

He couldn’t resist brushing his fingers over hers. They were cold.

“I didn’t see you, last week,” he began, filling the glass precisely and handing it back.

“I wasn’t there,” she answered.

Laughter spilled in from the living room, warm and inviting, but Lucifer found himself rooted to the spot. 

“Why not?” he tried, already certain that she wasn’t going to tell him a damn thing. 

She didn’t. 

She held the glass to her lips and took a long drink, looking away. “It’s good,” she said, finally, taking a small step back and studying the wine intently.

“Thank you?” he replied, unsure of what else to say.

“We should –” she started, gesturing vaguely behind him. 

How could he leave this spot? 

How could he move from where, exactly, he wanted to be, inches from her, after waiting for so long to see her again? 

So long, when he wasn’t sure how much time he had left, here?

She offered a smile and made to move past. He grabbed her arm, startling her. He looked to where his hand held tightly onto her wrist, as though trying to stop her from bolting, like an animal. He lessened his grip, but didn’t let go. “What happened?” he asked softly.

She stiffened. “Things change,” she said, a little too sharply, a little too much like she was trying to convince herself of it, too.

He had heard the same thing in his voice, before. 

He let go. 

 

For the rest of the evening, he didn’t stray far from the most comfortable room in the house – the kitchen. Not that it was so bad. Ella had a couple things going on the stove, and he couldn’t help it, really, when he shoved his way in, listening to her stories as they argued over the best empanadas could be found, the quality of street food in Mexico City (she, surprised that he could name a few of her favorite spots). He didn’t mind, as the night wore on, that Ella and her brothers slipped into Spanish more and more, translating on the sly for the other women. Linda has introduced herself, eyeing him in a way that made him feel less devoured and more like a pane of glass. 

Ella introduced her more fully, claiming she was the best "plant doctor" _ever_ , which had Linda correcting her. "I'm not that kind of doctor," she explained. "I have a Ph.D in Phytology, so I'm the one they call when someone's soil needs tested or questions about crop yields arise."

"Yeah, plant doctor," Maze corrected, and Linda only sighed.

Wherever he was, Chloe stayed opposite.

It was maddening.

Maze, a master of stealth, managed to take Lucifer away long enough for them to crush and snort a couple small pills in the bathroom, she emerging first as to not give anything away. Lucifer brushed a bit of reside from his nose, studying himself in the mirror as he sniffed sharply. 

Had there always been lines under his eyes like that? 

_You’re getting older,_ a voice in his head told him. _You should be knocking this shit off._

He narrowed his eyes at his reflection. “I’m fine,” he told it, surprised to find himself speaking aloud. 

He didn’t allow himself to dwell on it. The high was already kicking in, smoother than he expected. A smile bloomed on his face, and he resumed his spot in the party.

 

The night wore on. Maze snuggled up closer to Linda, throwing an arm over her shoulders possessively in a way that made Lucifer wish he could do the same to Chloe, but she seemed intent on finishing the bottle of wine he brought far away from him.

Someone broke a pot, spilling dirt all over the carpet; soon after, Ella rushed her siblings out the door with a sigh, shouting after them into the night to drive carefully.

Ella bent to start shoveling dirt into her hands, then fell back on her ass with a laugh. Linda arrived after finding a small broom and dustpan, helping to clean it.

Maze used the distraction to find herself a fresh bottle of tequila, which she and Lucifer passed between them as they watched. 

Ella, still laughing, spotted the bottle in his hand, and pointed importantly toward it. “Hey!” she shouted, a little too loudly, “We should play a game!”

“Ooh,” said Lucifer, shoving aside the coffee table and dragging Maze down to the floor beside him to sit. Chloe stared, incredulous, now suddenly the only person standing. Ella scooted closer, creating a circle, and Linda took up Maze’s other side. “Spin the bottle?” he asked. They discussed its merits as Chloe disappeared into the kitchen, then reappeared with five shot glasses. “Never Have I Ever,” she stated, handing each of them a glass before taking a seat opposite Lucifer, between Ella and Linda.

Maze laughed, a deep, throaty sound, catching Linda’s eye and raising a glass, urging Lucifer to fill it. He did, slowly, a curious tilt to his head as he studied Chloe’s expression. 

“Why?” he questioned.

Maze leaned close, whispering loud enough for all to hear. “She’s trying to get us drunk.”

He brushed her off, and she fell back against Linda’s shoulder with a huff. The others followed Maze’s lead, holding the glasses to the center for Lucifer to fill. 

“As punishment for a life well lived?” he asked Chloe, as he filled her glass.

She declined to answer, instead lifting her glass in a toast, laying down the rules. “Everyone get a turn. You say “never have I ever” and, if you have done it, you have to take a shot.”

“We’re gonna die,” Maze whispered again, leaning heavily into Lucifer. 

He swallowed.

 

The first tequila bottle was empty, chucked carelessly over his shoulder at some point. Lucifer was glad he was sitting, because the floor was nice. It felt solid beneath him, like the whole entire Earth existed for the express purpose of holding it up.

Ella was passed out, asleep against Chloe’s supremely smugly sober shoulder. Could shoulders be smug? Hers was.

She refilled his glass. 

“Never have I ever skydived over the ocean,” she said. 

Maze startled Lucifer by clinking their glasses together, and both took a shot. 

It didn’t taste like anything, at this point. He was certain he didn’t have any blood left, just a steady stream of pulsing, clear liquid pushing itself through his veins. The image took his attention for a beat too long.

He knew Chloe was getting desperate, and that fact had him laughing. Which probably sounded nuts, in the silence.

“Desperate?” he tried, sure that she would understand. 

She narrowed her eyes. “Never have I ever slept with a prostitute.”

He huffed, but Maze lifted her glass to his lips, and he took the shot. He coughed. “When?” he asked her. 

“Remember Singapore?” 

“Vaguely.” He stopped, then groaned, remembering. “That’s why my watch went missing!”

Maze barked out a laugh, shocking Ella back into wakefulness.

“Okay, kids,” Linda said, holding out her glass. “Never have I ever stayed overnight at a hospital.”

Lucifer and Ella took a shot. 

“Appendix,” Ella provided, and Linda looked to Lucifer expectantly.

He didn’t answer. 

The silence hung in the middle of the group.

Linda broke it. “Never have I ever run away from home.”

Lucifer and Maze took a shot. “That’s not fair,” he countered, but was too drunk to think of why. The room had begun spinning, much to his displeasure. He gripped onto the floor, leaning back on a hand.

“Never have I ever –” Linda started again, but Chloe’s gentle hand on her knee stopped her. 

“Never have I ever been in love,” Ella sighed, leaning heavily against Chloe’s shoulder. With a shrug, Chloe took a shot. Linda followed suit.

Lucifer looked to Maze expectantly, but she smiled shyly, and lifted the glass to her lips, downing it. Her hand snaked around the back of Linda’s waist, and stayed there.

Lucifer looked to the shot in his hand.

An oppressive silence hung over the group, only punctured by Ella’s soft sigh. He glanced up at the sound, and found Chloe’s eyes instead.

His hands shook as he pushed himself upright, knocking over the shot glass and the bottle, spilling its contents onto the carpet. He stumbled backward as he tried, and failed, to locate his keys, his hands roaming over his pockets but never quite making it inside. Being upright so suddenly had his vision blurring at the edges, and he blinked, trying to get it to go away.

A firm hand at his elbow had him stilling, only to find Chloe at his side. 

“Sorry,” she murmured, low enough the others couldn’t hear. “It’s my fault.”

He was sober. He was the soberest he’d ever been before in his entire life. He lifted a hand to her cup her face, running a thumb over her jaw. “You,” he breathed, shaking her lightly for emphasis. “You should never, ever, ever be sorry about anything. Ever.”

He licked his lips and looked at hers, plush and soft and pink and definitely needing to be bitten. 

He didn’t, though. He might have, were he drunk. Which he definitely was not.

A hand pressed at his chest and looked down to find hers, patting him down. The hand went lower, patting his pants pockets before slipping inside one. He pressed closer at the contact, but she quickly retracted her hand, the sound of his keys jangling so super loud. Like, on speaker, in his brain.

Weird.

“I’ll drive you home,” she said, pushing him toward the door. He heard her say goodbye to the others, and she put his arm over her shoulder like he had been dying to all night, and it was perfect.

And all he had to do was get piss drunk to do it, and that he could definitely do.

He was probably going to regret this tomorrow, but right now, he could lean over and press his nose into her hair and smell her, and, God, it was like inhaling sunshine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All you kind people on Tumblr made me feel better when I have been so lost these last few days. Honestly. I might not have continued writing were it not for you.   
> Thank you.
> 
> Stay tuned to see what happens after Chloe brings Lucifers' drunk ass home... from her POV... a bit more insight...


	11. Chapter 11

Lucifer had exactly enough wherewithal to type his address into her phone before he promptly laid back in the seat, stretched his long legs out in front of him, and passed out.

Chloe kept glancing over as she made the long drive, surprised to discover exactly how far away from everything he lived, to check that he was still breathing.

It was _a lot_ of alcohol, and it was her fault, and she knew it. She wanted to play that stupid game to learn more about the man, and may have damn near killed him in the process. 

There was no way she was leaving him alone tonight, not before she knew he was okay. Okay, maybe not _okay_ , okay, because his answers tonight left her with that vague, uneasy sensation, like that electric feeling before a storm breaks. But, at the very least, she could make sure he wasn’t alone.

Tonight. 

She struggled to keep her jaw from falling open at the sight of the house as she pulled into his driveway, but she managed herself enough to poke Lucifer in the ribs as she killed the engine. He stirred, groaning, and she made her way over to his side, opening the door for him and hauling him upright. He leaned heavily into her as she half-dragged him to the door and inside.

She flipped on a light switch and he promptly smacked himself in the face, trying to block out the light. The sound echoed in the large, empty space. She stepped further inside, Lucifer deciding that the wall was more stable than she was. She could feel his eyes on her back, watching as she took it in.

“Beautiful,” she murmured, into the great white expanse, and in the silence she heard a small puff of air escape from his lips. 

It was then, in the sigh, that she began to see what wasn’t there.

The balcony doors were closed, the glass clean, offering a breathtaking view of the city – but, cold, somehow, like a sheet of ice. 

The couch was elegant, and smooth, and new, but didn’t look like something anyone would want to snuggle into with a blanket and a bowl of popcorn, to read or watch a little something on T.V. 

The kitchen, to her left, was gleaming, open and unused. Even the stainless steel refrigerator didn’t carry a smudge or fingerprint on it. 

There were no pictures on the walls. 

Lucifer stepped past her, stiffly removing his jacket. 

“Hey,” she called out after him, but he lifted a finger and disappeared around a corner. Moments later, she heard the tell-tale sounds of him retching, and she stood in place, stopped by the sound.

The sound paused, and she let out a breath, but it swiftly continued. She spurred into action, moving to the kitchen and searching through his cupboards, filling up a glass of water for him. The sound abated, and she let him be. She wandered through the house, opening doors until she found something she suspected was his bedroom. 

It was the only room in the house that even vaguely appeared lived in. 

She stepped deeper inside, as though drawn. His bed took up most of the space, looking invitingly soft under its white, downy covers. A long, black dresser stood flush against a wall, a few open display boxes of cufflinks and pocket squares presented neatly on top. A bookshelf overtook the wall opposite, filled with tomes with familiar titles – but they appeared dusty, and untouched.

The sound of a shower starting pulled her from her reprieve, and she turned around, intent on discovering what the hell Lucifer was up to, because showering while drunk was probably not the brightest of ideas.

And that’s when she caught it, the only object in the house that she could point out as a “personal touch,” though the thought had her freezing to the ground.

He had a deadbolt on his bedroom door.

It was the only way in or out of the room, she realized. She didn’t need to look out the window to know it was on the side of the house and therefore well above ground level. She reached out, letting her fingertips trail over its heavy steel, and flicked it experimentally.

The bolt snapped out, loud, like the jaws of an animal. 

Gently, she retracted it. 

“Lucifer?” she hesitantly called out, making her way toward the sound of water. “Are you okay?”

No response.

She pushed her way inside the bathroom, able to feel dots of cold water as it misted over her skin. The sink, the floors, the tiling was all white, pristine.

Save for the several droplets of what could only be blood, mixing with small trails of water as they escaped from the open shower door. She followed them to Lucifer.

He had managed to discard his jacket and shirt, which lay crumpled atop his shoes at her feet. 

He sat, his eyes closed, with his back against the tile wall. His knees were pulled to his chest, and his head lolled back against the wall, his nose bleeding steadily. 

It may have just been a trick of the water, as he was halfway under the spray. The line of red trailed down his bare chest before disappearing, mixing with the water.

She should be more hesitant. 

This was a man she barely knew, whose behavior had already confessed more than his words ever could. 

He had a problem.

And he wanted to be with her.

Her. The single mom with a failing business, whose fun nights included reading her daughter bedtime stories, who could barely take more than couple of shots while playing a stupid drinking game about all the fun things they were supposed to do in life.

She set down the glass, thinking. 

He opened his eyes, catching her in that gaze of his. With the back of his hand, he wiped away the blood, smearing it across his face, his mouth.

“I’m not here to save you,” she told him, and he blinked. 

“I never asked to be saved," he said, thickly.

“My business is failing,” she said, unsure why she was telling him, now. Perhaps she thought he wouldn’t remember in the morning. “That’s why I wasn’t there, last week.”

He breathed in and out his mouth, his chest rising and falling as he listened, enraptured.

“I wanted to tell you, but I – I couldn’t,” she continued. “I’m sorry.”

He wiped his face again, and she could tell the bleeding had stopped.

“My father,” he started, his head hitting the tile behind him as he forced out the words. He slammed his head back again, shutting his eyes, clenching his fists. Alcohol didn't make the words come easier, but the emotions were plain on his face, unable to be hidden away behind a mask of personality.

Chloe couldn’t say what possessed her, then. She toed off her boots and climbed under the spray with him, letting the cool water cascade over her body as she mirrored him, letting her head rest against his bare shoulder, her knees knocking against his.

She closed her eyes, breathing him in.

“I don’t want him to come,” he managed, speaking slowly. “Every time he comes, I have to go.”

“So don’t go,” she told him. She felt his huff in his shoulder.

“It’s not that easy,” he answered simply, but she could feel the weight against the words, like placing her hand on the curved wall of a dam. 

The water cascaded gently down, washing their words down the drain. 

“Lucifer,” she said softly, pulling away enough to lift her face to his. 

Just one moment.

She could allow herself just _one_ moment. 

His dark eyes looked down into hers, and she breathed in his exhale. His lips parted and he swayed, lifting a hand to cup her jaw as he had done before, brushing away a strand of wet hair that had stuck there.

It wasn’t perfect, but it couldn’t be, because neither of them were. 

“Please,” she whispered. His nose brushed hers, hesitant. 

“Chloe,” he breathed, and she understood, then, her name: the young, green shoot of fresh growth.

He pressed his lips to hers, the softest, barest touch. She pressed into him like the first green of spring, pushing against the cold, winter soil until it yielded, unable to resist the pulse of new life.

He tasted, faintly, of blood.


	12. Chapter 12

She was erosion. 

Lucifer could feel his outer layers being ground away and washed down the drain. The water, cool as rain, fell onto the back of his head, gently running its fingers through his hair. No, _her_ fingers, were in his hair, threading through as though she were passing them over soft, summer grass. 

He had never felt so light.

The water trailed over his face, his nose, his lips as they slid over hers. He felt himself slipping down the wall, his bare back stuck where the water had not yet reached, stopping him from melting away completely and following the water all the way to the sea.

Her fingers pulled from his hair, running over the shell of his ear and down his jaw until it met just beneath his chin. She lifted herself away, the brush of her exhale left lingering on his lips. 

He blinked his eyes open. The mist coated her eyelashes, and dots of water, like dew, covered her skin. His gaze drifted back to her lips as she slowly licked them, taking away her finger from his chin, taking away herself from him.

Her lips quirked in a smile, and whatever he had left – whatever coating of ice, of permafrost, he used to shield his heart melted into a puddle of dirty water that quickly drained away. 

He wondered, briefly, if he had ever been this clean.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

He shut his eyes and mouth, trying to concentrate on words, his thoughts swimming by like the shadows of fish. The alcohol made them become dangerous, looming like leviathans, swirling deep in the dark. 

“No.” His voice was rough to his ears, like gravel. “I’m not." 

There were more words – other words – _better_ words – but they swam just out of reach. He wanted to explain. He wanted to tell her everything, speak until his voice was hoarse, until he was empty of words. He wanted to be free of them. 

He wanted to be free. 

He opened his eyes, unable to meet hers, his gaze skirting over the way her wet jeans clung to her knees, the curve of bone beneath.

Bones. He was nothing but bones.

She had eroded him away to bones.

Suddenly, she was pushing into him, and the protesting squeak of the water being shut off sounded far too loud to his ears. Then, she was upright, and he was left staring at her from below, this goddess with wet hair plastered to her forehead. She offered a hand. 

“C’mon,” she told him, shaking it a little for him to take. 

No. It was shaking. She was shivering. 

He made her cold. He could barely feel it, but he had entrapped her, brought her down to his depths and now she was cold, and it was his fault. 

“You can’t stay down there forever,” she said, her tone teasing.

He let his head fall back to the wall and wiped the water from his face with both hands, smoothing back his hair. He smiled, a little. 

“Never been anywhere else,” he told her. 

Her chest rose and collapsed in a little huff, and then she was squatting in front of him, hooking her hands beneath his arms and pulling him upright with a short grunt of effort. He leaned back against the wall, steadying himself.

“Stay,” she warned, before leaving.

He remained.

In a flash, she was back, throwing him a towel. He managed to catch it before it fell to the floor, but only just, the movement leaving him swaying.

She shot him a smile, tilting over a little to wring out her hair, catching it in the towel and drying it. She dried off her arms, and her hands flitted to the hem of her shirt before looking at him expectantly.

He looked back blankly.

She shot him another look.

He couldn’t help it – he grinned. She huffed, and grabbed him by the arm to direct him out – and that’s when he remembered.

“High School Hottub,” he blurted out, smiling cheekily at her reflection in the mirror. His brows furrowed. “No. Wait. That’s not right.” He closed his eyes as he thought for a moment, her hand steadying. “Hot Tub High School!”

“Congratulations,” she said dryly. “You’ve seen my boobies. What are you, twelve?”

He blamed his unsteadiness for pushing up against her, hooking his chin over her shoulder and continuing to grin at her reflection. “I’m happy to take another look,” he offered, raising an eyebrow.

She smacked at his arm until he stumbled backward, laughing, and turned out the door, banging against the doorframe as he lifted the towel up to dry off his hair. He turned a bit as he made his way down the short hall, shooting her another coy smile as he wiped down his chest and arms.

Whatever smile she had faded.

He continued walking backward a few steps, trying to decipher the look on her face, feeling his own grin fade. He bumped into the doorframe of his bedroom door, watching.

She took another step forward, opening her mouth to speak. Something stopped her, because she shook her head, quickly closing the space between them as she ushered him into his bedroom, saying something about dry clothes and pneumonia as she started digging through his drawers.

 _Oh._

He remembered.

He forgot, sometimes, how ugly they were.

“Chloe,” he started, “it’s not –”

“A conversation to have while you’re drunk,” she quickly interrupted, with a curt nod in his direction, though she kept her eyes on the dark fabric in her hands. He sat on the bed, and she hesitantly deposited a few things at his side. He ran his fingers through the clothing, swallowing.

“Do you need me to stay?” she asked. “You seem… better, now. I’m not so afraid you’re going to keel over on me.”

He shrugged lightly. “Hasn’t happened yet.”

In her silence, he looked up.

She rested back against the dresser, crossing her arms to hold herself. 

He had done that. He had made her drive him home after he got drunk, and got her wet and cold, and now she was looking at the ground between them because she had seen something she had no explanation for, something that was hurting her. 

He was doing this, all this, as though he _wanted_ her to suffer.

“How can you… how can you just,” she shook her head. “Care so little about yourself?”

He had to stop it. Had to stop that hurt in her eyes before it killed him. 

The only way he knew how.

By hurting himself more.

“You should go.”

She didn’t budge. 

“Didn’t you hear me?” he asked, raising his voice a little to steady it.

“Oh, I heard you,” she answered.

Finally, he found her gaze and held it, challenging. 

She didn’t back down.

“It’ll never work out between us,” he told her, the words finding themselves of their own volition.

She bit the inside of her lip, but didn’t say a word.

“You… deserve someone worthy. Of you. And that isn’t me.”

She hugged her arms around herself, tighter. 

No, that wasn’t supposed to happen. She’s supposed to go. Why isn’t she going? Why isn’t she getting it?

“I have a temper,” he continued. “I’m selfish.”

The corner of her lips quirked in a smile. “I know.”

“But you’re not,” he continued, confused. “You always put your daughter first, even when it’s a horrible inconvenience.”

She giggled a little at that.

He stiffened, feeling the familiar course of rage building in his body. “You’re marriage fell apart,” he shot back, standing. “Your business, your world is ripping apart! How can I care so little about myself? How can you care so little about yourself?” He shook with anger. “What are you doing here?” 

She held his gaze. 

With one finger, she pushed at the center of his chest until the back of his knees hit the bed. 

“Sit,” she said, infuriatingly calm.

He fell back with a small bounce, which only served to enrage him further.

“I’m not here because my marriage didn’t work out,” she started, her voice tinged with anger. “Or because you’re my best customer, or because I have nowhere else to go. I do.”

He bit his tongue to keep it from lashing out. 

Her expression softened. “I’m here for you.”

He blinked, taking in her words. How did she do that? 

How did she make the storm within him calm, as though the skies had never been gray at all?

She sat beside him on the bed, pulling the clothing out from underneath her and holding them in her lap. “I thought you could use a friend.”

He studied her profile, the way her damp hair clung to her neck, the sharp line of her jaw and gentle curve of her nose. She looked… breakable. And yet she had stood firm against him.

Fascinating.

“You, as well?” he asked. 

She nodded, once, the movement so small he barely caught it at all.

“I can’t save you,” he said, barely remembering her words from what felt like hours ago.

She looked at him then, the corner of her mouth uplifting in a smile. “I never asked to be saved.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ALL ABOARD THE GD ANGST TRAIN GEEZE LEAF, sorry guys XD  
> it'll get happier after this... and then... well.


	13. Chapter 13

Lucifer had never understood worship. 

He had fallen to his knees many times, it was true. He would slowly lower himself to one, then the other, for a lover. He would push them against the wall, against the bed, against the headboard and speak empty words into their skin, if they spoke at all. He had never understood – never felt – that overwhelming wave of devotion that made knees buckle and mouths gape, that left unfelt tears staining cheeks. 

_“Stay,”_ she said.

To him. 

The smooth skin of her leg draped over his shoulder, his hands drifting lazily up her thighs, the curve of her ass, pressed into the sheets. She was sure to have thumb-sized bruises on her hipbones tomorrow.

But that was for tomorrow.

Lucifer pressed a kiss to the tender skin of her thigh, breathing in the heady scent of her desire, still lingering, wet and inviting, on his lips. He brushed his nose up to her hip, nuzzling her taunt stomach, dragging his naked erection up the silk sheets, desperate for friction – but feeling no hurry. 

Chloe lay back, propped against the white headboard, flushed and radiant. Her hair fell over her shoulders in golden waves, her sunlight refusing to dim even as moonlight streamed through the window. 

_“Stay.”_

He let his hands tickle over her ribs, and she giggled. He propped his chin on his hands, flat on her stomach, and looked up, a rebuttal on his lips. He couldn’t stay. He could never stay. That’s how it was always going to be. It didn’t matter that he was a man, now, and no longer the child that had fallen to his knees in another kind of worship, the kind where you felt the tears. 

She shifted to lift a hand to cup his face, to run her fingers along his stubble, and he realized how foolish he’d been. There was no headboard. How could he have ever thought there was? He must have been blind not to see it. 

Two downy, white wings emerged from her back, resting gently on the covers, blending in with the white surrounding them. 

_Stay._

The word was scarcely more than a breath, but prayers didn’t need to be spoken to be heard.

 

Lucifer awoke with a start, reaching over blindly to shut off the single most infernal piece of technology he owned. Had he set an alarm? 

Had he _ever_ set an alarm? 

He squinted at the red, digital readout – 7:00am. 

No, he definitely didn’t set it. He also definitely didn’t put the couple of Tylenol on the bedside table, beside a glass of water, because Lucifer had never been one to exactly plan ahead. But – stranger things. He popped the Tylenol in his mouth and drank down the entirety of the glass before flopping back onto the bed with a huff. 

He was settling nicely back into the warm covers when another need arose, and he grumbled, throwing off the sheets and making his way to the bathroom. After a few moments of trying to get his body to cooperate with him, and wondering why, exactly, it wasn’t, he remembered.

Lucifer watched the memory unfold as a movie before his eyes. Sitting on the shower floor, drifting and unhinged. Chloe pressed up against his side, solid and real and steady. Her lips. Her mouth. 

Her kiss.

He finished up, splashing cold water on his face before letting his head hang over the sink, dripping. He shut his eyes tightly, trying to piece together the night before. 

He couldn’t remember her leaving. 

They had talked, about something. He remembered her sitting beside him, still wet from the shower, and then her weight at his side again and a smile – god, her smile lit up his room, and he remembered wanting to bury himself in it, wanting to bury himself in her.

Had he?

He wiped his face clear, studying his reflection. His skin was pale, emphasizing the dark purples under his eyes. His stubble was a little too long for his liking. He shrugged, the mirror reflecting the movement back to him, and got to work cleaning himself up.

Chloe wasn’t here, that much was obvious. 

She left. 

The thought had him brushing his teeth a little too harshly. 

She left, after telling him to stay. 

He shook his head, spitting into the sink before continuing to scrub at his teeth. She hadn’t told him to stay. That was a dream. She had freaking _angel wings,_ and he was fairly certain that wasn’t real. 

But the rest – the taste of her, lingering on his lips, the scent of her in his bed, his crumpled sheets – he didn’t know.

He didn’t know.

How could he not know? How could he have a figurative angel in his bed and _not fucking remember?_

Lucifer spit again, discarding the toothbrush as he turned on the shower, stepping inside. Rage built itself swiftly and effortlessly inside his body, sliding into the cracks. He forced himself under the spray, trying to relax. He tugged at his hair, relishing in the spark of pain that accompanied it. 

Why was he like this? Why was he such a fucking mess all the time? Was it getting so bad that he couldn’t tell reality from fantasy anymore? Was it so bad, that he had her – had her – _her,_ who, for some reason, actually _liked_ working with him, who laughed at his innuendo and jokes and called him out when he went too far, who pushed him to start remembering the names of the people he worked with (much to their surprise, which bothered him more deeply than he’d like to admit), and had bloody _forgotten_ it? 

Because of alcohol. Because of a couple of pills.

Because of _him._

The tiles survived, unscathed.

The shower caddy, his products, the shower door, and his knuckles did not.

 

Chloe spent most of Sunday taking and prepping orders – Lucifer’s contacts with other chefs and restaurants in the area had definitely been a boost to her business, for which she was thankful, even if it kept her so busy that she even started to wish that Dan was there, if only to help. She could ignore the lingering effects of the night before, because Chloe was a responsible adult human being who had exactly one (1) hangover her entire life – in college – and refused to ever feel that way again, taking every precaution.

Still, the headache threatening to form had her wondering if she should have ever drove Lucifer or herself home last night. She should have known better, but something in her refused to just call Lucifer an Uber and send him on his way without making sure he was okay.

It was kind of a hassle to call Maze and do the whole pickup – car switch thing, but as Maze seemed even more unaffected by the alcohol than she was, she didn’t feel too bad about it. Besides, it’s not like she woke her up or anything. Now, Linda she could hear snoring in the background, plain as day, but Maze hadn’t even changed yet when she came to pick her up. 

She raised an eyebrow, and asked why Chloe wasn’t staying the night, ensuring that Lucifer was still probably going to be the best lay of her life, drunk or not.

Chloe shook her head, and slid into the passenger seat, and tried to tamper down the rage she felt at Maze insinuating that Chloe _ought_ to take advantage of Lucifer while he was falling-down drunk, as though that were a perfectly _normal_ thing to do. 

Every time the phone rang her breath caught in her throat, wondering if it was going to be Lucifer, pestering her with questions (she wondered if he remembered the whole, hot tub high school thing) and quips and making her laugh, but she should’ve known better.

It never was.

 

Lucifer, now fully dressed and ready for work, wandered around, searching. Chloe moved his clothing from last night, he was sure of it, but he didn’t yet know where. He spotted his jacket, finally, draped over the arm of the couch – he must really be blind – before digging his hands into it, finding what he was looking for. His knuckles stung as he dragged the scraped and red, angry skin over the fabric, but he ignored it. He was going to have to wear gloves at work today, which had the anger, held barely at bay, sliding easily back into place.

What a fucking embarrassment, he was.

He closed his hand around the couple of small baggies, pulling them out and studying the residue left inside. He and Maze finished off more than he thought. He popped a finger in his mouth, wetting the tip, and smeared his finger around the inside of one holding barely more than a dusting of blow.

He had intended to bring it back to his mouth, to rub along his gums just on the principle of not being wasteful. 

“Fuck,” he muttered, staring for a moment too long. 

He clenched his hand around the bags and hurried back toward the kitchen before he could change his mind, running the tap and cleaning himself off, dumping what remained down the sink and, just for good measure, turning on the disposal, before tossing the bags in the trash.

The blades barely registered anything hitting them. It returned to its usual, grinding drone, and the white noise from the running water filled his ears. 

He could be more thorough. He could rummage through the rest of his house, finding his stashes and supplies, collecting his probably too numerous bottles of alcohol and pouring them all down the sink.

He flipped the switch for the disposal and turned off the tap, plunging the house back into silence. 

It might not be enough, but it was a start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just fyi, in case the readers have never worked in a kitchen before, being forced by a chef to wear gloves is a huge disgrace, same as getting burned, because it is a marker to show you are acting like an amateur. so lucifer would definitely feel embarassed/angry at the need.


	14. Chapter 14

She’d been talked down to before – on too many occasions, really – by chefs and wanna-be chefs who wanted her to lower her prices on produce. Pick your reason: she was five minutes late, she was an hour late, she was a day late, the drought led to shitty yields and they weren’t getting what they wanted, the blackberries were a little too tart last time, it was raining and they were going to get wet unloading, the chef was in a "mood" and, apparently, _so was she,_ but also apparently no one had told her that before that particular moment.

That’s why Chloe liked working with Maze – she didn’t yell. She seemed to take a shine to Chloe the moment they met, with a knowing something in her eye. The second one of the line cooks tried to talk down to her, Maze was there in a flash, her teeth bared and with a gleam in her eye that just _begged_ for him to try again. Of course, Maze tried to get her to change from five dollars a pound to four dollars a pound on the radishes, but it was more of a game at this point, a familiar back-and-forth that usually left Chloe smiling, even when she caved.

She used to make the trip to Paradiso first thing in the morning, but since Lucifer kept insisting she stay for breakfast and making her late to her other deliveries (when she had them), she decided to start going to Paradiso last. She phoned Maze; it was no problem.

Chloe wandered through the empty but increasingly familiar, labyrinth-like kitchen, smiling a bit as he came into view. His tall, lean form leaned over the stainless steel center table, knife in hand, carefully slicing away the skin and scales from a filet of raw fish the length of her arm. 

That really should have not been as sexy as it was. But she could see –she could _feel_ – the intensity of his focus from here and the deftness of his fingers, clad in black, neoprene gloves, as they slid between the slick skin and wet flesh, guiding the knife. There was a precision to it, a cleanliness, a practiced ease that had her rooted in place, watching. He removed the rest of the skin, then threw it into the open trash can beside him with a strange amount of force – too much, really, she could hear the slap of it against the side of the bin, which wobbled lightly. He flipped the filet over, and in the movement, glanced up enough to see her.

“Hi,” she said.

He had this way of looking at her. Like he was always surprised, somehow. Like every laugh she prompted was a shade incredulous, that every smile had a bit of a raised eyebrow with it, like he didn’t expect it. She thought she’d get used to it, but the surprise on his face now wasn’t this usual veneer. It was genuine surprise. Like she hadn’t shown up at his restaurant every Monday morning for the last several weeks. 

She strolled over and he immediately straightened, setting down the knife and making to wipe his hands on his apron before thinking twice, holding his hands out in front of him awkwardly. She pulled out the stool and took a seat, and tried again.

“Hi?” she repeated, trying to squash down the feeling that she was somehow doing something wrong. She gestured toward the general disarray of the table. “What you got going on today?”

He was still holding his hands up, the gloves slick from the fish. 

It was definitely sexier from far away. 

She waited a beat, raising an eyebrow. “Lucifer.”

“Yes.”

Her eyes darted to the side, unsure. “You’re staring.”

_Nothing._

She lifted a finger, pointing to his hands. “Am I, uh. Interrupting something? You need me to leave?”

He looked down to his hands, as though shocked they were still there – really, she was sure if his eyebrows went any higher they’d have to start timesharing with his hairline – his thick, luxurious, dark, perfectly coiffed hair that positively begged to be messed up – _down, girl._

With a quick flick, the gloves were off and in the trash, and before either of them knew it Chloe had reached across and taken his hands in hers, studying the torn and bruised skin atop his knuckles and fingers. 

“What happened?” she asked, turning them this and that way to get a better look. “Did you get into a fight?”

It was then that she noticed his hands were shaking, just a tiny bit, not enough to see but just enough to feel. She squeezed them gently, looking into his face.

“You could say that,” he answered carefully, offering nothing more. “Did we have sex?”

The words jumbled from his mouth so quickly she wasn’t sure she heard him right. “What?” she asked, letting him pull his hands away. 

“The other night. Did we have sex?”

There was something in his face, something that she had seen only once before – when he started talking about his father. 

Fear.

“You… don’t remember?” 

No. It wasn’t fear. He was _petrified._

Chloe remembered the last time he had asked that question – when they first met, when he had made her so uncomfortable in front of her damn _child_ that she literally tried to push him and all his inappropriate questions out of her tent. 

Seemed so long ago, now.

Well. You know what they say about revenge.

She couldn’t help the sly grin that made a home on her face, then. “Oh, _Lucifer,_ ” she began, watching his eyes widen. 

She’d been an actor, once.

“It was _amazing,_ ” she drew out playfully, throwing her head back. “I mean, the heat, the –” she searched for the right word, “the – _gymnastics._ ”

The single most uncomfortable smile she had ever seen happened across his face, like someone who had never smiled before trying it out. 

Good.

“I mean,” she giggled, a little flirty then, and threw in a sultry look for good measure that was _probably_ terrible, “you had moves that were making even me blush.”

“I – I did?”

Her grin widened. “Oh, _yeah._ And then, you did this – this _thing,_ ” she bit her lip, wildly searching around the room, “with a… a spatula,” her eyes landed, and thought for sure Lucifer was going to guess she was speaking right out of her ass _any second now,_ “and – a zucchini.”

“This… thing,” he repeated. She nodded, trying to hold in her laugh at the look on his face.

“You know,” she tried, then lowered her voice, leaning in conspiratorially. He did the same. “This thing.”

She held his gaze as long as she could. It was like watching a laptop from 2002 trying to connect to the internet.

_Error._

Finally, she couldn’t take it anymore, and bust out laughing, leaning back in her seat so far she almost fell out of it. “Lucifer,” she chided. “We didn’t have sex.”

“We didn’t?” he asked, relief evident in his shoulders. “Wait. Why?”

“Are you serious?”

He waited.

“Maybe you being falling down drunk had something to do with it?”

_Wait. Why is he smiling like that._

“But you did want to have sex with me?”

“What?” she said, feeling her cheeks rapidly reddening. _Yes._ “No.”

He leaned closer, studying her. “You did.”

She tried to shake off the effect he was having on her, the way his eyes burned into hers. Wasn’t she the one supposed to be teasing him? This incredible, _horrible pain in the ass_ of a man? “Listen, you and I – well, there is no you and I, we have a professional relationship –”

“We have a relationship?” he interrupted, the picture of innocence. 

“A professional one. One that I am,” she scoffed a bit, “definitely not going to mess up by sleeping with you.”

Slowly, he carefully set his hands flat on the table, leaning closer. His gaze flickered to her lips. “Who said it would mess anything up?”

_God, that fucking focus._ She hated it. Really, really hated it. Hated how it felt like nothing else was happening around them when he did that, when all his attention was on her. She let out a shaky breath. “It would,” she tried. “Because you’re the one –”

“I’m the one?” he asked softly. 

She screwed up her mouth, trying to stay her ground. “With the restaurant. And I need you –”

“You need me?” he breathed, and when did he get that close? She could smell his lingering cologne over the smell of the fish. 

“– to keep me in business,” she finished.

He leaned back a fraction of an inch, leaving her just enough room to take in a deep, steadying breath. “Are you suggesting that, if we slept together, I would no longer require your products?”

She shrugged lightly. “Never good to mix business and pleasure, right?”

He looked aghast. She probably should’ve remembered who she was talking to. 

“We did kiss, though, yes?” 

Begrudgingly, she answered. “… Once. And you were drunk. And kinda me too."

His chest heaved in an exhale, probably one that was just this side of too relieved. 

“It was probably a mistake,” she said, quietly, studying a particularly riveting scratch on the table. “I mean, we are just very different people, you know? And,” she looked up, and her voice left her.

She had broken up with Dan. She had been the one to suggest a separation, and the first to say the word “divorce,” and even before that, she was more often than not the one to end relationships with a _it’s been fun, and you’re a really great guy, but it’s just not what I’m looking for,_ or, _I’m sorry, it’s just not working out,_ or, _I think we’re better off as friends,_ and she had never – _never_ – seen a man look at her like Lucifer was looking at her, now.

Like all the light in his eyes went out.

Just… blinked out. Off. Flicked a switch and boom, gone. 

“I didn’t –” she started, but he opened his mouth, and she let him speak.

It took a moment, and when he did, his voice was hoarser than she would’ve imagined. “Did… did you ask me to stay?”

She shook her head. “Stay?”

He shut his eyes briefly before offering a curt nod.

She thought back. “You said something about not wanting to go. You weren’t making a lot of sense. Are you going somewhere?”

A full body shiver went through him, and she resisted the urge to reach out. 

Perhaps. 

Perhaps she could, though. In another way. 

Chloe really hated this back and forth she was putting herself through – why couldn’t she just pick a damn path and stick to it? 

“Are you doing anything tonight?” she asked. He narrowed his gaze. “You could come over. For dinner. If you’d like.”

“Am I required to cook?” he asked, and she huffed out a laugh. 

“Probably,” she answered, truthfully.

He smiled, and _fuck,_ she really liked that smile – that surprised smile. “Then I’ll be there.”


	15. Chapter 15

Lucifer arrived exactly forty-two minutes after he left his place, after he’d spent thirty-six minutes mindlessly pacing his living room, after fussing in the bathroom for twenty minutes, an hour after he’d showered and spent twenty-eight minutes in the closet, trying to determine what to wear. 

Which is to say, he pulled into Chloe’s driveway at exactly 5:12pm, which was a respectable time enough to arrive, he thought, and certainly time enough to put something together for dinner.

Twenty-five acres wasn’t a lot for a farm, but Lucifer hadn’t expected that she actually _lived_ on it, in a little, yellow house a couple minutes down a road dirty enough that the Corvette would need washing to make it sparkle again. It was private, and away from the din of the city, and once he killed the engine he could actually hear the light trill of birds in the trees that surrounded the house.

A sharply peaked roof drew the eye upward, complete with attic window that looked anything but small or dirty. Her front door was dark blue, like twilight. Beside it, a broad bay window with matching shutters overlooked an inviting patio, complete with porch swing. Directly above, a similar window; it must be to the master bedroom, he reckoned, and peering upward as he made his way toward the front. A few large bushes decorated the space in front of the porch, which he imagined would flower during the spring. 

Absently, he wondered what color the flowers may be, but he quickly forced the thought back down.

He probably wouldn’t be around to see it.

The door swung open before he could knock – he really must be wearing some kind of bell, for people to predict his movements thus – and he did a double take at the empty space before looking down. 

Ah, the child.

He may have forgotten about the kid.

“Beatrice,” he said by way of greeting, and her face lit up in that crinkling way of hers, her eyes and mouth becoming small half-moons on her face.

Apparently, that was all the restraint she had, because she suddenly was at his side, her arms thrown around his waist. “Hi, Lucifer!” she squealed, and he shook his head at her enthusiasm, trying to peel her off. “Do you want to see my room?”

“Perhaps later,” he said, “when I’ve actually come inside the home.”

She laughed, a tinkling, light sound, and pulled him deeper inside. He strained to listen, but only the television seemed to betray life inside, playing a show with a laugh track.

“Mommy’s outside,” the girl happily informed, dragging him quickly through the living space and toward the back door – too quickly for his liking. There were several little things he’d like to take a closer look at: the pictures on the mantle above the fireplace, for one, because that was _definitely_ a younger Chloe smiling back at him. 

He managed to catch a glimpse of her kitchen as the child pulled him along, her gorgeous, bright, open kitchen that rivaled his own, save for the fact it looked, well, _used._ A few stray dishes stood in the wooden drying rack, and a bowl of bright oranges and lemons stood out on the counter, and a mostly-blue painting of the ocean docks hung above the sink, and that was about it before he was thrust with surprising force toward the suddenly-open backdoor, and right into Chloe’s arms.

One arm, to be accurate. Her other was holding a wicker basket, full of something green which he did not catch a better look at before he stumbled into her. She barked out a surprised laugh, which surprised him more than anything else. His momentum carried them both a step further outside, and he instinctively wrapped his arms around her.

“You’re early!” she exclaimed, as he spun on his heel to face back toward the door.

“Am I?” he asked, a little breathless at her proximity, at her body pressing up against his in all the right places. So close, he could feel her breath, and all he had to was close that last few inches of space between them.

“Gross!” the child exclaimed, and Lucifer quickly shot a look downward, confused. _Surely she meant to push me into her,_ he thought, but the child had her eyes fixed on the basket.

Chloe shook her head, releasing Lucifer as she dipped down to tickle her child back inside. “You’ll eat your greens and you’ll like it, you little cake monster!” 

Lucifer stood, watching the strange scene, until Chloe beckoned him to follow her inside. He followed her to the kitchen, where she went about finding a more suitable container for her bounty. The child tugged on his sleeve until he leaned down to listen.

“I don’t like Brussel sprouts,” she whispered, and Lucifer caught Chloe’s incredulous huff. “Don’t make them for dinner, please.”

“Perhaps you don’t like them because they haven’t been made correctly,” he offered.

“Hey!” Chloe argued, but her grin spoke of amusement, not outrage. “I make them perfectly fine.”

“I’m sure you do,” he agreed. She turned her back, and he leaned back down toward the child, shaking his head. 

Trixie beamed. Lucifer had the strangest sensation in his chest.

He blamed the sobriety.

“What would you like for dinner?” he asked the air between them as he straightened, running his fingers over the part of the sleeve the child kept tugging at. He’d spent far too much time agonizing over the outfit, and didn’t want her stretching out the fabric of his black, carefully-fitted cashmere sweater. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d worn jeans, but the dark pair he’d found folded carefully in his closet hugged him nicely, and it seemed Chloe wore jeans most of the time. 

And, if he was really being honest with himself, he was kind of getting bored with dress slacks. No matter how many colors of suits he owned or how sensibly he had them tailored.

If he was being honest.

Maybe he was drunk on change, because he was feeling that kind of loose lightness that accompanied drinking, without having touched a drop since that Saturday night. 

“Pizza!” the child answered automatically. 

Chloe, finished with her task, turned around and leaned against the counter, running a dirty hand over her face. She looked more tired than he’d noticed when he’d first arrived, and he couldn’t stand to see her _weary._ Not tired in a fun, worn out kind of way, but actually like she’d had a long day and needed a very long massage. A naked one. A very naked, long, massage.

He cleared his throat.

Chloe noticed the dirt on her hand, and lifted a finger before Lucifer could open his mouth. “Don’t say it.”

“Don’t say what?”

“That I’m dirty.”

He lifted an offended hand to his chest. “I would never.”

Trixie giggled, still glued to his side. 

“Why don’t you two figure out something for dinner, and I’m gonna go shower.”

She quickly stepped past, and Lucifer definitely opened his mouth – 

“Don’t say it,” she threw over her shoulder.

He craned his neck to watch her leave until she disappeared around a corner, and suddenly he was aware of a very small human being staring up at him expectantly.

“Pizza?” he repeated, carefully rolling up his sleeves.

The child lit up, as though he made the stars shine. 

There was that weird feeling, again. 

 

Lucifer weaved through Chloe’s kitchen as though it were his own, marveling at the fact that he could open a cupboard and find exactly what he wanted. He knew it was no easy task – it could take forever to set up a kitchen the way he wished, where reaching for something became second instinct, but Chloe’s mind seemed to mirror his own. It wasn’t long before he had cleared off a counter space. He threw his hand into a sack of flour and dusted it over the countertop, flicking a little in the child’s direction, making her laugh. 

Carefully, he measured out more flour, water, honey, olive oil, butter, and a packet of yeast he managed to find stashed away behind the spices.

“What are you doing?” the child asked, getting up onto her tiptoes to watch.

“Making the best pizza crust you’ve ever tasted,” he answered, mixing all the ingredients in the bowl before scooping the tacky substance out onto the counter. He began to knead the dough, folding it surely and efficiently, trying not to bop Trixie with his elbow.

“Can I help?” she asked, eager.

He added a dusting more of flour, considering. “Sure,” he shrugged. 

Trixie disappeared into the pantry before returning in a flash, a stepstool now beneath her and she able to lean upon the counter. Lucifer tore off a respectable chunk of dough and slowly began to demonstrate how to push it down with the heels of his hands, before folding one side over the other and repeating, flipping it over every other time.

She was a quick learner, he noted with some satisfaction. 

“Why?” she asked.

“Why what?”

“Why do we have to beat it?”

He chuckled. “One must _knead_ the dough in order to incorporate air, otherwise the crust will become too dense.”

“And that’s not good?”

“Not for pizza, no. For other kinds of bread, you may want a thicker –” he considered a way to explain it, bringing a hand up to his mouth and closing his fingers, “chew. But most people prefer a lighter touch.”

She nodded, understanding. After a few moments, he stopped, returning the dough to the larger bowl and covering it with a towel, reaching above Trixie to grab another, smaller bowl as she continued her movements, biting her lip in concentration. She paused for a moment, watching, but he wordlessly encouraged her to continue.

It was her hair, he decided later, that did it. Her dark, messy, curly hair. 

Or her small hands, or the way her tiny fingers were tacky with dough, or the way she pushed her whole weight into the work. Perhaps it was the smell, that scent of not quite yet bread, that white scent of flour. Maybe it was the shower running, somewhere in the house. Maybe it was the television, softly playing a show he didn’t recognize. Maybe it was the sunlight streaming in through the front window behind him.

Maybe it was the scent of home.

Whatever did it, Lucifer was no longer in that kitchen, watching the child.

He was transported, to another kitchen, an older one, wood lain and dark, and he was the child.

The messy, dark haired child who got his fingers into everything, who retreated to the open, sunlit kitchen of the home he remembered best whenever his brothers or sisters found themselves busy with other tasks. Who would hide in the cupboards beneath the large, granite, speckled center island, telling stories to the pots and pans. Who would skirt around the help, snagging bites of food from cutting boards while he distracted them with a charming, boyish smile and outlandish stories. Who sat on the floor, his back against the cupboards he no longer fit into, but still in hiding from tutors or teachers or his – 

His father.

His father, from whom his mother could only shield him so much. His father, who gripped his arms a little too tightly when yanking him upright, who shoved him a little more harshly than he did with any of his brothers, who told him that he was _better than this, if only he applied himself, if only he cared about something real, about something other than himself, didn’t he know he was meant for more than this_ – whatever this of the week, of the month, of the year, happened to be. Whatever interest he had was never enough, was never good enough, _foolish_ and _you’ll learn_ and _I’m doing this for you_ and _someday you’ll understand._

Lucifer stared down at the child at his side, on her pink, plastic stepstool, her tanned skin betraying a lifetime of playing outside, her hair pulled into a loose top knot. He stilled her hands and motioned for her to place the dough in the bowl, and wordlessly covered it. She hopped off, smacking her hands together and watching as the dough stuck between her fingers as she pulled them apart, and _God,_ Lucifer couldn’t imagine _ever_ laying a hand on her, and she wasn’t anywhere near something he would call his, but his hands could easily wrap around her arms, her throat – how could anyone think to do that, how could anyone even _try,_ how could anything even _think it_ – 

“What now?” she asked, still watching her hands.

He managed to start the water and they both washed their hands, and he cleared off the counter with the sponge. At some point, he asked what she wanted on the pizza, he was sure of it, because suddenly she was at the fridge, pulling it open and loading him up with plastic bags of cheese, of pepperoni, all the while chatting away. 

Nothing was yet on the stove, and he hadn’t yet pulled out a knife, and the oven wasn’t yet on, and really it was just that that let Lucifer think it was okay to run – _no, he didn’t run, just spiritedly walked_ – to the backdoor and outside, fumbling into his pocket for cigarettes and a lighter. 

Nicotine wasn’t Lucifer’s go-to drug of choice – usually it left a bad taste in his mouth, when his mouth was so used to tasting better things – but the old habit picked up again as soon as other ones died away.

Shakily, he snapped the lighter and lit a fag, inhaling deeply as his eyes strained to find focus. He leaned a shoulder into a beam. 

The afternoon had begun to dim. It was still winter, after all, even if winters here meant just different things could grow, artichokes and avocado, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower – all the stuff kids aren’t supposed to like, that he always liked, and _this is why I don’t do sober,_ he thought unwillingly, taking another drag. He let his eyes wander over her property. Hedges, chest-high, separated her backyard from the rest of the land. The grass was dry, faded, but long beneath a classic picnic table, forgotten off to the side; she had enough room for an outdoor stove, or a built-in firepit, or another long table, and briefly he wondered why she didn’t take advantage of the space, so easy to transform into one for entertaining.

He took another long drag, surprised to see the cigarette nearly burned out. He ground it under the toe of his boot before kicking it off the porch, sweeping away the ash.

A steading, calming breath later, and he returned inside. 

Two people were depending on him for dinner, after all, and somehow that meant more than any full restaurant ever had.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the long haitus there, friends. I was down for about a week with the flu.

There’s a taste in the back of her mouth. It’s faint, as though a leftover bit of breakfast managed to squirrel its way out of her teeth and remind her of what she had, but it’s not food. It’s not anything, really. Metallic, a little. Not enough to be blood. Chloe lets her weight rest on the back of her heels as she squats down in the dirt, and sets down the small shears she’s been using to snip off the dead ends of branches and rotted veggies she didn’t get to quickly enough. Only then does she look up.

Rows of short hedges follow the line down to the horizon, and she’s in the middle of one, just enough room for her to sit without brushing her elbows on the plants on either side. The afternoon sunlight dapples through the leaves, throwing its gently swaying patterns on the soil. She watches, for a moment, the shifting light, suddenly uneasy in the surrounding quiet.

Something’s scared off the birds. 

Something’s that got the hairs on her arm prickling, despite the warmth. 

The blue sky offers nothing. The taste is stronger now, in the air. Chloe allows herself to plop down, to seat herself fully on the earth, the cold seeping through her jeans. It’s an old instinct, to take off her gloves, to curl her fingertips into the dirt just enough that she feels it embed itself in her nails, like she’s been tasked with carrying a seed across a field before letting it drop. It’s old, and it’s useless, and she does it anyway.

She doesn’t turn around.

It’s ozone, that taste. The hard blue above her is cloudless, but she can’t deny the flicker of something on her tongue, that unmistakable sense that there is something she’s not seeing. 

There’s a storm coming. She’s sure, now.

She still doesn’t turn around, doesn’t look to meet the eyes of whatever is watching her. 

_Whoever,_ she corrects, always the pragmatist. Perhaps there’s a line between someone and some _thing_ , but it’s the same as the line between the last wisps of the atmosphere, and the start of space. 

The word _celestial_ comes to mind, but she shakes her head to clear it away, wondering where the thought came from. 

Carefully, slowly, Chloe returns to her knees, sticking her gloves in her back pocket and gathering her things. A breeze ruffles the rows of bushes, sending their shadows into disarray. As she stands, Chloe feels the cold from the ground still, and it’s odd, to be so very, very tired. Perhaps because it’s winter, and the light isn’t as strong as it should be. The leaves aren’t as green as they should be, and somehow this means that she isn’t as strong as she should be. 

She knows that a couple of good weeks can’t offset a lifetime of debt. Knows that a couple of good nights with friends don’t change the months she’s gone to bed alone, or the meals she’s made and forgotten to eat, or the sting that lingered long after Paluchi called her a bitch, even though he’d been the closest thing to an uncle she’d ever had. She knows that blue skies can still rain, that fruits rot on the vine sometimes, that a drunken kiss on a bathroom floor doesn’t really mean anything.

And yet, because she’s probably at the butt of some great big cosmic joke, Chloe still thinks that it _could._

She brushes her free hand on her pants before tucking a stray bit of hair behind her ear. The wind pushes it out again, and she leaves it. _Sometimes you just have to let things be,_ she thinks, and just like that it’s okay to turn around. The eyes are gone.

She laughs to herself a bit, unthinkingly making her way toward the back porch. There’s a storm coming, and she can’t do anything about it. She can’t tighten down anything, cover anything, close anything. Everything she ever could tighten or cover or close in herself has already been done, and the ropes inside her are starting to fray. 

And like that, she’s laughing again. Laughing because there’s a man being thrust into her arms, and he’s holding himself whipcord tight against her, and it feels so wrong, doesn’t it? Is that how she is all the time? She remembers a time when she was anything but, when she trusted so easily, too easily.

But that was a long time ago.

 

She watches him. It’s not as though he doesn’t notice. He always notices. He always keeps a weather eye on her, even when his back is turned.

But tonight. Tonight she lets herself look openly, doesn’t shy away or avert her gaze when he meets it. His eyes are dark, she knows. His hair, his brows, his eyelashes are all dark, when everything else about him is pale, like the moon. That sweater he wears, that hangs a little loosely over his shoulders, that trails just a little further down his wrists, is dark. He stands tall in her white kitchen, in her little yellow house, like a tear in space. Now, Dan – Dan exuded a light, a solidness, a brightness that worked with her own, for a time. He belonged in the space.

Lucifer doesn’t belong. 

He’s a shadow, moving around her kitchen, her dining room, her living room. He slips around her furniture and looks at her pictures and serves them pizza, and she finds herself barely able to realize she’s listening and responding and laughing along with him and Trixie. She can’t, for the life of her, remember what they’re talking about.

She’d like to slip her hands under his sweater.

The thought has been consuming her since she first laid eyes on him. He’s not wearing anything under it. The fabric looks soft, softer than any other he’s worn. He’s usually so neatly tucked in, all straight and tailored lines, buttoned up and closed off. She’s seen him without a shirt, seen the scarring he’d tried so valiantly to explain – she wouldn’t let him, not yet – but this is so much more… intimate. Familiar. She tries to imagine what possessed him to forgo the suit, but can’t bring herself to care. She needs her hands under the sweater. She needs to feel the fabric pooling on the top of her wrist as she lays her palms flat on his sides, to feel the creamy expanse of skin she’s seen there, dotted with freckles.

She can’t imagine him as a child, playing outside in the sun, but it must’ve happened. 

She wonders why he’s so pale, now.

Chloe allows herself to want, and she can hear the wind pick up, pushing up against the back door and rattling the windows. The sky darkens, and she flicks on a lamp or two as Trixie settles in to watch something on the television, one last show before bed. Lucifer has been standing with a hip against the kitchen counter, nursing the same glass of wine from earlier, and it’s not as though she hasn’t noticed him not drinking.

She noticed, and followed suit. She’s standing opposite, leaning against the stove, and though she’s trying to keep her eyes on the wine glass in her hands she just can’t. Can’t bring herself to look anywhere but him.

Trixie laughs from the other room.

The wind picks up, and the house shudders.

She wants him to step between her legs, to tower over her and for her to tilt her face upward to meet his, to feel encompassed. She’d like to be overwhelmed.

He doesn’t, but something he says makes her smile, and they continue on.

Chloe hears the show end, and steps out to get Trixie on the path to bed. Lucifer elects to do the few dishes as she does so, though she weakly protests at the gesture. It’s going to rain, she tells him, and for a moment he looks out the window and she wonders if he’s going to leave, but then he starts the water in the sink and seems perfectly content to stay.

By the time she leaves her daughter’s room, Lucifer is standing on the front porch. He’s got the door open behind him, and she sees him through it, his back silhouetted by the tumultuous, gray sky. 

It roils. He does, too, but it’s all underneath the skin.

His car sits in the driveway at an angle, sleek and black. He takes a drag from a cigarette and blows it out his nose. The smoke is swiftly carried away.

She shuts the door behind her as she steps out.

“I wanted to thank you,” he says, without turning around.

“For?”

He shifts, just enough for her to read his profile. “I never thought I’d miss a city, before.” 

She steps closer, and he takes another short, quick drag before dropping the cigarette, grinding it out. 

“Sorry,” he says, holding his breath for a moment before letting the smoke escape. “Bad habit.”

“Isn’t that, like, your middle name?” she jokes, and he cracks a smile, his dark eyes catching the last of the light. She feels herself relax, enough to look past him into the clouds. “Your car,” she starts, but he already knows, and waves it off, not bothering to look.

He looks even paler in the odd, watery light. 

Like a ghost.

A ghost of future mistakes.

He inches closer.

“Every place I’ve lived, every city I’ve been to, there has always been another just around the corner, waiting for me to arrive. Faces change – the women change – but they flock to any new place I go.”

She huffed out a laugh at his ego, but he takes it in stride.

“But,” he continued, and she could swear she heard a tremor. Perhaps it was just the thunder, echoing in the distance. “I’ve never wanted to stay anywhere. Before. And for that I have you to blame.”

“I thought you were thanking me,” she replies, weakly. The wind brushes her hair off her shoulder, and for a moment she lets herself feel it as his hand, instead. 

Lucifer holds her gaze, stepping forward. Slowly, as though waiting for her to retreat, he leans. He is a tower, a monolith of black and white.

He presses a kiss to her cheek.

“I am,” he whispers, the ghost of his breath at her ear. She felt herself turn into him, the warmth of his cheek so incongruous with how he appeared. He pulls away, enough to look her in the eye, and wavers. His eyes dart from her eyes to her lips and back again.

She slips her hands under his sweater, feels the way his muscles contract under her touch. 

“Stay,” she whispers, and it’s half a plea and half a command, because she can’t think of any other way to put into words the need to bring him inside. She knows her home is a home, and not a house, not the cold white expanse of his. She knows her bed is soft, and warm, and that he is not – that he is anything but soft, or warm – and she needs him to be. She needs him to know what it’s like. 

To feel safe. 

To hear the wind screaming outside, and the pelt of rain on a window, and be tucked away somewhere, in the arms of someone who – 

Who could love him, maybe.

Who, maybe, already does.

He’s shaking.

He’s shaking when he presses his lips to hers, and stops when he gathers her into his arms. She lets him wrap himself around her, his kiss firm but yielding, as though to say _darling, whatever you want, you show me the way._

She takes his hand and leads him back inside just as the first drops fall.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jesus, what happened to me? I haven't updated this fic in like, two months.  
> I had considered abandoning it, but I owed it to @casuallydeliciousphilosopher for reasons not to be spoken of here, and getting back to writing this was my price. One happily paid! Thank you for kicking my butt back into gear!  
> Since I last took up _Paradiso_ my husband found a new job, I quit mine, and got back to writing full time, working on Original Content (dundunDUN).  
>  I promise I will return to this story - I know exactly where it's going from here. I hope you all stick with me to the end, though I can't make any promises as to when that'll be.  
> Thank you, and I hope you enjoy!  
> <3  
> #savelucifer !!!

Up the stairs, in the blue-dark of the twilit house, Lucifer met the eyes of Chloes and Trixies and a few Dans. A day at the beach, Trixie's small frame in the distance, crouched in the sand. A sleeping Dan, passed out on an armchair, a swaddled infant laying on his chest. A selfie of mother and child in matching felt reindeer antlers. Her hand was warm and small in his, and she paused on a step to look back at him. 

A boom of thunder shook the house, rattling the frames on the wall. Both glanced upward and listened.

"I think you had the right idea," Chloe said. "I wouldn't want you out there in this."

"Biblical," Lucifer agreed.

"I might not go that far," she said, "but yeah." Without another word she continued up the stairs, leading him down a short hall. "Bathroom," she pointed out, before reaching inside another room and turning on a lamp. Her bedroom, gently illuminated. An old quilt on the bed. A dresser with a jewelry stand. A book on the right-side end table. Lucifer was right about the house; from this window he could look out onto the road. 

Chloe quietly excused herself and Lucifer stepped to the bay window, watching the rain. He imagined what it would look like from outside, from down the way. A single lit window, orange against black. A beacon in the dark, like a lighthouse, with him inside instead of out. He took a seat at the bench beneath the window, leaning his back against the wall. The rain poured down the glass in streams, reflecting the glow from within. 

Chloe returned. She had changed from a flannel and jeans to a silky, black cami - her undershirt, Lucifer thought, having seen the edges peeking out from before - and thin, gray sweatpants, the kind that usually had something written on its butt. Lucifer hoped it was that kind.

"I hope you don't mind," she said coyly. "You looked more comfortable than me and I got jealous."

“Can't have that," he murmured, looking her up and down. He straightened, placing his feet flat on the floor. She stepped shyly between his knees. His head came up to her chest; really, it would be rude _not_ to look. There was a swoop of darker skin on her neck, where a shirt didn't cover often enough. Her breasts lay as firm and plump as ripe apples just beneath the fabric, but he resisted the urge to lean forward and bite. Something still hung, tenuous and electric, in the air between them. Her hands played with the cashmere at his arms, pushing up the sleeves before settling softly at his shoulders, his neck.

He traced the tan line, dipping the soft fabric with his finger. She closed her eyes. He followed the line of the cami to the strap and nudged it gently off her shoulder. Loosened, it fell, exposing the top of her breast. She inched closer and he widened his knees. He’d never gone so slow before, and watching the details of her made his cock ache with desire, pushing at seam of his too-tight jeans. He reveled in the slight flush in her cheek. The goosebumps on her arm, as he lightly drew his knuckles down to her hand. The soft exhale she gave when he gripped her hip tightly, tracing his thumb on her hipbone. He resisted the urge to tug her close, to take her wantonly, to _get on with it._ She wasn’t someone so fast. She was someone who worked too hard, for too long, with so little payout. A true persistence hunter.

He snorted a bit.

“What?” she asked, only slightly pulled from the rosy haze of her current state of mind.

He let his hands trail up her sides, pulling down a little on the fabric until her breast was fully exposed. The little pink nipple flushed with attention. 

“You hunt plants,” he explained, sweeping the pad of his thumb over the side of her breast.

She inhaled sharply. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“Hmm,” he agreed, then deftly pulled her close, taking her breast into her mouth. _Finally,_ his cock cried in triumph, and discreetly he pushed to adjust himself, moaning at the relief. A wash of rain thudded against the window and she gasped at the sound and at Lucifer tugging at the shirt until it pooled at her waist. He lavished attention on the other breast, licking at the nipple as he caressed its sister. 

Chloe gently pushed at his shoulders, and he retreated, able to stare properly at her for the first time. Her body was like her face: the sharp line of her jaw mirrored in the cut of her collarbones, the swell of her hips and breasts just like the plushness of her lower lip; he would never be able to see her mouth without thinking of the way her body curved in at her waist, would never again be able to see the creamy skin on her neck and not know that the same blush touched her stomach.

He hadn’t even seen the rest of her and was awestruck. 

She leaned forward and pressed her lips against his, sure but not rushed. He wanted to chase that kiss. He wanted to drown in the familiarity of it. Not as a prelude to something else, though his body had different ideas. He cradled her jaw, tilting up his face to hers like a flower aching, reaching for the Sun. He did not deserve the light, the rain at his back, the way her fingers tangled into his. He did not deserve it but he was going to take it, take anything she would give him.

Which was more than he expected. She broke the kiss, leaving him breathless, his lips wet and parted like a harlot. But he wasn’t going to hide from her that he’s wants her, that he wanted her from the moment her crystal blue eyes laid on him and saw right beneath the thin, plastic film he called a life.

She sank to her knees and swiftly undid his belt, button, and zipper before his mind whirled into action, tensing and grabbing for her wrist. 

“Repay the favor?” she said sweetly, reaching beneath his open jeans and taking him firmly in hand, gliding up and down above his silken boxers.

“Jesus Christ,” he managed, as his body tensed in anticipation. Even the thought of his head buried between her thighs was more than he could dream.

Well, that wasn’t _exactly_ true. There was that one time.

She took it as a yes, and slipped him free of his confinements – he just had to let out a moan at that, at the pressure being relieved only to be replaced by the assured strokes of her hand. She held the base and pressed her tongue against the slit, lapping at him and meeting his gaze before taking the head in her mouth. “Chloe,” he groaned, as she sucked, pumping the rest of him with long, sure strokes. She hummed, and closed her eyes, and took in the rest of him down to the hilt, pressing down firmly on the base of his cock and holding him down as she hallowed her cheeks. He gripped the edges of the bench seat white-knuckled tightly, leaning back on locked elbows. A headful of blonde in his lap and it was all he could do not to fuck brazenly into her mouth, not to take a fistful of the hair and tug.

He panted like a dog instead and let her ravish him, his toes curling still inside his shoes, and God he was still fully dressed, what kind of a turnabout was this? He grabbed a fistful of sweater to yank it over his head. Her hand stopped him while the rest of her didn’t, and he let go, throwing his head back and nearly smacking the cold glass. “Naughty,” he moaned, “like a –” he gasped as she lifted and pumped him twice, before swallowing him down again, “like – a schoolgirl behind the bleachers.”

He felt her smile and his stomach tightened; who else laughed with him at his own jokes, instead of at him? She laughed at him too, no doubt, often, but it was usually accompanied by an exasperated eyeroll or other long-suffering tell, as though they had been doing this for months. But they _had_ been doing this for months? 

The knot at his base tightened. _God_ he wasn’t going to last long, and he’d think it was a damn shame except it got him that much closer to doing the same to her, and if _that_ didn’t start to set him off.

“Chloe, _Chloe_ ,” he pleaded, his voice rising as he gasped, breathless, “I’m – a little – mad, actually – howareyou – so – goodatthis, _fuck_.” 

Thunder boomed behind them once more, and the lamp flickered.

“Oh, fuck, fuck Chloe, _bloody hell_ ,” he chanted as she sped up. He couldn’t take anymore; his hand flew out and gripped her hair tightly, holding her as he fucked her mouth for the final few strokes. She moaned around his cock and dug her nails into his thighs and drank him down. Another _boom_ and the lamp clicked off. He threw his head back as he came, joyous, and not at all with the nagging _it's over_ feeling that it usually accompanied. He let her go, shaking out the tenseness in his hand as she righted herself. They both looked at the lamp and laughed. She rubbed her head a little, pulling her shirt back up as he tucked himself back in.

He reached out, hovering his hand near her ear. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?” he asked, concern quickening his words.

“No,” she said. She shook her head and smiled, patting down her hair. “I just wasn’t expecting it.”

A sudden, sharp knock at the door startled them both.

“Or _that,_ ” he agreed, and suddenly Trixie was bursting into the room and a pillow was being hurled at Lucifer. He covered himself while Chloe, already kneeling, was at the perfect height to pull her daughter into her arms. Lucifer tried to discreetly tug up his pants beneath the pillow, to no avail. Trixie ran from her mother’s arms to the window, staring out into the dark. 

Chloe stood, clenching and unclenching her hands. 

“Beatrice,” he said slowly, trying to regain control of his breathing. “Are you frightened?”

“No,” she said quickly, still staring out into the night.

“The lights will come back on soon, monkey,” Chloe assured.

Lucifer recognized the look on Trixie’s face. It was something else.

“What troubles you?” he asked.

She screwed up her mouth – so much like her mother in that way, he thought with alarming fondness – and searched for the right words. “What about all the squirrels and rabbits and birds and stuff?”

He shook his head. “What about them?”

“Are they going to be okay?” she asked, looking at him with big, dark eyes as though he held the answer.

_Their love is softer than I deserve._

He tried for a smile and searched for the words himself. “All the animals of which you speak have survived for millions of years, in a million myriad forms, through a million storms. It is true that some will not make it,” he explained. Her eyes welled with tears. “And your heart is so big to care for them. But the rain is important, too, as I’m sure your mother has explained.”

“Many times,” said Chloe.

“Because it makes things grow,” Trixie agreed. 

“That’s the idea,” Lucifer said. 

_Lucifer from ten years ago would have never envisioned this scene,_ he realized. Trixie nodded, placated, and slipped off the bench. Chloe took her hand and led her back downstairs, speaking low all the way, and leaving Lucifer in the dark.

The word _angel_ was on the rear of her sweatpants.

He fixed up his clothes and returned the pillow, heading calmly to the bathroom. He studied what he could see of his reflection, all shadows and lines, before sinking to his knees beside the toilet and promptly throwing up.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a bit shorter than the last chapter, sorry, but what can I say? the muse is fickle.

“Are you okay?” Chloe asked, leaning against the doorframe of the bathroom as Lucifer gingerly washed his hands. They were still bruised, from his fight with himself in the shower, the knuckles on his middle fingers both torn. With the lights still off, she was mostly silhouetted against the backdrop of her bedroom window, throwing flashes of light into the house. He shut off the water and heard her sigh. “Sorry. I feel like I ask you that all the time. You’re probably sick of it,” she said, trying for a smile.

He leaned back against the sink, drying his hands. “On the contrary,” he assured. “I like feeling… honest.” He hung back up the towel. “So many of my interactions are based on half-truths and omissions.”

She smiled and pushed herself off the wall. “Interactions?” she asked coyly, stepping forward and linking her fingers in his waistband. “Is that what you’d call it?”

He grabbed her roughly and pulled her flush against him. She gasped at the movement, then giggled, wrapping her arms around his waist. “No,” he said, nuzzling her ear. “I’d call it a bloody _epiphany._ ”

She hummed in agreement, then slid her hands up to cup his face. She brought herself up to him, her eyes fluttering closed. “Glad to be of service,” she murmured against his lips.

He caught her mouth in a hard kiss and firmly grabbed a handful of ass, grinding her hips into his. He groaned. Nothing was quite ready to work again so soon, but _God_ it wouldn’t take long now. He’d thought getting weak in the knees only came _after_ he did; he was going to have to reevaluate his entire approach to sex if a damn _kiss_ could leave him shaking. 

She must have noticed too. She pulled away enough to look into his face, and any arousal he’d put there was quickly replaced by one of concern. Motherly concern.

He groaned again, and not in a sexy way.

“You’re shaking. And sweating,” she said, placing the back of her hand on his forehead. “And cold.”

“It’ll pass,” he assured.

She took a step back, out of his arms. “Are you sick? Do you have the flu?”

He shook his head.

“You’re sure?”

“Quite.”

She frowned, considering. “Food poisoning?” she guessed. “But I feel okay. Trixie too. Just scared from the storm.”

“No, it’s just –” he directed her back toward her bedroom, and he followed her back inside. “I probably did too much. Too soon.”

“You mean…?” she motioned toward the window.

“No. Well, yes. But not just that. All day, I mean.” He looked to the ground and took in a breath as she situated herself on the bed. He looked at his hand and shook it out, feeling like a fool, embarrassment coloring his cheeks.

“Lucifer,” she said softly. Reluctantly he met her gaze. “What were you saying about half-truths?”

She was right, and as much as he would have normally hated to admit it, he was wrong. He took a seat beside her and picked at the quilt. 

“These last few weeks certain… things… got a little out of my control. Which I don’t like, and which normally doesn’t happen. And when I woke up yesterday I realized that it was on me, that I was – am – someone who might… need to stop.”

She was quiet for a moment. “So you did?”

He nodded. “I did. Maybe a bit too all-at-once.” He licked his lips, finding them a bit drier than he’d like. “And I think that it’s starting to kick in. A bit.” He looked out the window. The rain hadn’t let up. “It’s nothing too dramatic,” he assured her. “I’ll just be a bit useless and grumpy for a day or two.”

“Oh,” she said. That made her smile. “So like you usually are, then?”

He bumped her shoulder with his own. “Very funny.”

She patted his hand and stood quickly, as though to get away from him. His stomach sank. 

“I’m sorry,” he told her. “I don’t like... being like this. You don’t deserve it.”

She studied his expression, but he couldn’t read hers – a light crease between her brows, a small downturn to the corners of her mouth. “I appreciate that, but you don’t have to apologize to me. Friends help each other out.” She smiled, which eased his heart a little. “I’m going to go find some candles.”

He watched her leave, dumbstruck. Perhaps Maze was right.

Perhaps he really wasn’t alone.

 

He forewent sleeping in the bed, though Chloe had pressed him to take it. He went downstairs instead, and tried to settle on the couch, but in one moment his skin was too hot, then too cold; he was thirsty, then had to keep frequenting the bathroom. He was glad he wasn’t disturbing her. He hoped he wasn’t. The thought of her asleep in the room upstairs was enough to calm his heart, if not his body. 

Lucifer didn’t often feel shame. He could tighten that particular emotion into a neat little ball and shove it deeply inside himself, to be ignored. It had taken years of practice, and he was proud of his brazenness, his ability to do what others felt held back from doing by a sense of propriety or carefully cultivated morality. Lucifer had earned his scars, quite literally, and used them as a mark to set him apart. He was different; he was unique; he was special; he was above the rest of them. He had sunk to his knees in supplication and, in doing so, came out high above the rest.

He pushed the feeling down, now. Sitting on Chloe’s couch, under a throw blanket in the dark, alone and shivering. It would pass. He’d been here before. The worst of it came on after a day, and the worst of it passed in a day. Usually it just meant long weekends – there was a reason _Paradiso_ was closed on Mondays, after all – but he didn’t want to ride it out in Chloe’s living room. Not after receiving a spectacular blowjob and being rendered unable to reciprocate by the time it took her to put her child back to bed. 

Too hot, Lucifer threw off the blanket and made his way out to the back porch. The winds had died down but the rain still poured, heavy and unceasing, flooding the grass. He gripped onto the railing and let what rain could reach him wash over his face, rocking back and forth.

“You cruel, manipulative bastard,” he muttered to himself. The endless, glittering lights of L.A. were behind him now; he could not speak to them. Not that they ever replied. At least with a city at his feet he could pretend someone out there could hear him, could hear his thoughts he dared not say out loud. He paused his rocking. The air felt cool on his face, and he closed his eyes, breathing it in, fighting for control. _I know punishment,_ he reminded himself. 

There was a woman in the house behind him, sleeping alone upstairs. _And she didn't deserve it._

Sleeping alone because of his mistakes, the mistakes he felt, with a surety he could not account for, would not happen again. She had invited him into her life, her home, her bed. And what did he offer her, in return? Yes, he cooked for her, when she made her deliveries – and tonight, though that was nothing special. Yes, he’d spent his Sunday mornings with her, often barging into her conversations. But she never seemed to mind, did she? She seemed to enjoy having him there, even though she felt as though she could not tell him about her struggles with the business. He couldn’t judge.

Slowly, carefully, he stepped back, wiping the rain from his face. Within moments, he was back inside, leaving the storm outside. He climbed the steps and entered the bedroom once again, slipping off his sweater and piling it atop his shoes, socks, and belt already discarded from earlier. Gently, he sat on the edge of the bed. She seemed to be asleep, facing away from him. The clock showed it was just past 3am – of course she was asleep.

He wanted to find the words. The right words. To apologize. To explain, well, everything. To tell her. 

To tell her the truth.

Whatever that was.

A candle still burned on her nightstand, flicking its golden light around the room. He watched the flame. He wasn’t sure when Chloe became aware of his presence, but then her hand was on his knee and her face turned to his.

Wordlessly, she tugged the covers down, and pulled him inside with her. She turned over and kissed him gently, her thumb stoking his cheekbone, before returning to her own pillow and promptly falling back asleep, if the little snuffling sounds were anything to go by.

Lucifer watched her for a little while, then blew out the candle.

Darkness had never seemed so bright, before.


	19. Chapter 19

Lucifer listened for signs of life as he woke. Watery, gray-tinged light filtered through the window, falling on the clean, hardwood floors of Chloe’s bedroom. She must have picked up his clothes from the floor, because his few things were stacked and folded neatly on the chair beside the door. 

Lucifer was used to housekeepers – God knows his mother tried her best, but with what amounted to an infinite amount of money at her disposal and eight children (four of her own, four adopted), there was no reason to keep up without an army of paid help – so perhaps his perception was skewed a little, but he could swear he had never seen _anyone_ care for his things when they weren’t paid to do so.

His mouth was dry and his head felt like it was filled with slimy river rocks, but he’d never been happier. Even to wake up alone.

He took his time getting ready – a long, hot shower was just what the doctor ordered – and skipped down the stairs just as the front door was opening. The smile on his face hadn’t left since he woke up. He didn’t think he could wipe it off if he tried.

“Hey, Chlo,” Dan called out, backing into the house with an armful of Menard’s bags, “I tried calling but you didn’t –” 

Lucifer stood in the living room, silent, an expectant expression on his face. “Answer?” he finished, unable to suppress his joy. “Too busy, I imagine.”

Dan dropped the bags beside the door, looking around Lucifer. “Chloe?” he shouted.

Lucifer exaggeratedly stuck a finger in his ear, grimacing. “Are you ever not yelling?”

“Shut up,” he threw at him, pushing further into the room and slamming the door shut behind him. “Where is she?”

“No idea,” Lucifer said, truthfully. “Probably out running the business you begged her to sell. Brunch?” he motioned toward the kitchen. 

“Oh, so you’re making brunch, now,” Dan said. “You’re in my house, making us brunch. Like we’re brunch pals.”

Lucifer felt his body heating up, tensing for a fight. It was a familiar feeling to have among his brothers. He really had no qualm with Daniel – if he was stupid enough to lose that angel, then he was a moron, but that didn’t necessarily make him a _bad_ guy. Just a dumb one. Really, Lucifer should be _thanking_ Daniel for being such spectacular failure. 

But Lucifer couldn’t help it. Itching for a fight was kind of his second nature, growing up with six brothers. He took a step closer and leered. “We could be so much more than that, Daniel,” he crooned. Dan turned bright pink, all the way to his ears, and Lucifer grinned. He waited until it looked like Dan was fit to burst before cutting him off. “Honestly,” he said, backing off. “I don’t know where your delightful ex-wife is –”

“We’re _separated,_ ” Dan corrected.

“– but I’m starved, and have places to be. So. Shall I make you a bit of something as well?”

Dan, still fuming, actually looked to be considering it. Lucifer could have laughed, but knew when to pick his battles. A world-class chef offering to make you a meal was something people rarely turned down, even angry husbands – ex or otherwise.

“Fine,” he stormed, stomping back to collect the bags.

Lucifer smacked his hands together. “Excellent.”

 

That was how Chloe found them – sitting across from one another at the dining room table with plates scraped clean and empty glasses, leaning back in their chairs and laughing. She came in through the front, caught Lucifer’s eye as Dan turned in his seat to look. 

Lucifer wanted to look at her for the rest of his life. She really was a waif of a thing, but strong and supple, like a willow tree. She had her hair tied back in a half-braid, low on her neck, wearing a loose, light blue button up that Lucifer would have guessed had seen better days before realizing that, no, it probably always looked like that, and light jeans. 

“Hi,” she clipped.

Lucifer stood, unsure of what to do. The hesitation in her voice stopped him from going to her. He collected the plates instead, bringing them to the kitchen. He gave them a minute, rinsing off a few things, before returning. “I should be on my way,” he told her.

“Yeah,” she agreed, awkwardly opening the door for him. He stepped out, taking the handle and shutting it halfway behind him, ducking his head in goodbye. She held onto the door before he could shut it all the way.

“I’ll see you later?” she asked, hope in her eyes.

Lucifer sighed deeply. Hers fell. “I’m afraid so,” he said gravely.

She snickered, and he smiled. “You ass.”

He shrugged, twirled his car keys around his finger, and skipped off the porch.

 

Lucifer unlocked and went through the back door of _Paradiso_. It was dark. He flicked on the first set of lights, confusion knitting his brows but not able to dampen his smile. “Julio?” he called out. They should be here, by now, prepping for the impending lunch rush. “Marcus? Maze?” He wound through the different stations, flicking on another set of lights. They gleamed off the stainless steel table, the pots and pans sitting clean and unused.

Confused, he pushed his way through the double doors to inside the restaurant. It was empty.

“Mazikeen!” he shouted joyfully upon seeing her, even if she was sitting at the bar. She was nursing an amber bit of something in a crystal tumbler. “Interesting choice of venue for day drinking.” He gestured to the empty tables. “Is there an American holiday I’ve forgotten? All Kitchen Assistant’s Day, or something?” 

She took a sip. “You should sit.” 

He slid into the seat beside her, glancing at her demure expression in the mirror behind the bar. He reached over for a glass and a bottle, laughing to himself. “It doesn’t even matter what shenanigans you’ve got cooking up, because frankly I’m too happy for you to spoil things.”

“Happy?” she repeated, incredulous.

He hummed, looking at the bottle in his hand. _What am I doing,_ he realized, setting it back behind the bar. “Ms. Decker and I – sorry. _Chloe_ and I, are –” He faltered, searching for the right word. 

“What?” Maze asked. Always so impatient. 

“Well it doesn’t matter,” he assured. “Things are –” _Alright? Real?_ “Good. With us.” He laughed. “I’ve got this overwhelming sensation – I can’t even describe it – I feel… invincible. So whatever it is, bring it on. I’m sure I can deal with it.”

She finished the rest of her drink and reached for the bottle, refilling it as she spoke. “Have you checked your bank account lately?”

“Maze, I haven’t checked my bank account since 2005. That’s what I have you for: _all_ the boring logistics. Honestly. What kind of a question –” he shook his head.

She did the same. “Forget it,” she said sharply, draining the glass in one pull and standing.

He grabbed her arm. There was something in her face, a mask of hardness he rarely witnessed. “Why would I need to check my bank account?” he asked slowly. She paused, and the mask slipped just enough for him to stand, too. 

“Short version?” she snapped. “Your Dad sold the restaurant.”

He sat back down.

“We got the money, employees got their severance, and,” she grabbed her jacket off a stool and pulled out a set of keys, slamming them on the bar, “we’re to leave the keys here for the new owners. Not that we need to be walked through it.”

She marched to the double doors and slammed them both open as she walked through them. “Say goodbye to Paradise,” she shouted behind her, mockingly. “It’s time to go home!”

Lucifer sat still, numb, listening as the double doors slowed to a stop. 

He eyed the bottle he’d put back. The tumbler had slipped into his hand without his noticing, as though it knew what he needed. He stood and threw it with all his might. It bounced off a far wall, clattering to the ground, not even having the decency to shatter.

 

 _”Hey, Lucifer, um – it’s me, again. Voicemail number three hundred and thirty seven,”_ she laughs. It wasn’t, really. She’s left only two before this one, since three days ago. Lucifer sat on his bed, the clothes he cared about packed away in two suitcases – the rest could be sent away for later, if he wanted – and listened, the phone sitting in his lap on speaker. _“Obnoxious, right?”_ She was wrong. So, so far from wrong. _“It’s just that you, you haven’t been picking up, or returning my calls, so. I – I saw that the restaurant was closed, and I wish,”_ her voice faltered her a bit. It always did, in the same place, every time he listened to the voicemail from last night, he couldn’t stop listening to it since last night – if anyone knew torture, he did – and it was always the same. That hitch of breath. The softening of her voice, the way it dropped its veneer of fake happiness, the kind he was so familiar with, and became real. _"I wish that you’d talk to me. Just tell me what’s going on. Please. I’m here for you, okay?”_

He paused the recording, then played it again. One more time. A real glutton for punishment.

_“I hope you’re okay.”_


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry about the crazy postings - I hope you don't all get sick of me!

Maze had scheduled the flight for the next evening. She knew Lucifer always traveled better at night, and at this point in their relationship he had no need to tell her that. There was something magical about seeing the world from above, of course, but Lucifer was always more relaxed overnight. People were calmer, more introspective, during red-eyed flights, and he was no exception. He slept well on planes, especially those crossing the ocean at night. Something about the blackness, the abyss created by a star-lit sky and dark water, soothed him. If a plane of his was ever to go down, he wouldn’t want to watch the world pass in front of him as he fell. 

He had thrown his suitcases into the boot of the Corvette, and was stopping by a coffee shop for a morning pick-me-up on his way to the hotel she’d booked for the two of them. It was always easier to say goodbye from a hotel than a home.

It was easiest to say goodbye by not saying goodbye to anyone at all.

Which is why when he saw Linda, seated at a table by the window, he tried to make himself seem as inconspicuous as possible. But he should have known better: his accent usually gave him away, and today was no exception. Linda looked up from the myriad of papers next to her laptop, and waved him over to sit with her. 

Pleasantries aside, he fell silent. She studied his profile as he watched the baristas going through their routines. 

“Maze loves this place,” Linda began, looking around fondly. “She said it reminds her of home.”

Lucifer considered it. Nothing about the décor reminded him of Cape Town. “I can’t imagine why.”

Linda half-smiled, like remembering a private joke. “She likes seeing people who are hungry for something.”

“She’s in the right business, then.”

Linda shut the laptop gently. “I like it too, actually. Watching people striving hard to achieve their goals. It must be familiar to you. The kind of work necessary to make it.” She ducked her head to get a better look at him. “The kind of sacrifice.”

He glanced over. “Yes.”

A moment of quiet, as though she expected him to say more. “Maze also said you were both leaving. She didn’t say for how long.”

He looked over. Linda had her eyes on her papers, not really seeing the words and figures on their pages. She took in a sharp breath, offering his a fake smile and shuffling a few things together. “I’m sure it won’t be for too long.”

 _Is it better for them to know?_ Lucifer wondered. Why did they bother making these connections, only to break them in the end? Who did it benefit, really, the giving and taking of hearts? Was it really better to be numb to it all, to live in a haze of days instead of the perfect clarity that accompanied any sense of joy, of wonder, of – of love?

Was honesty unkind? Lucifer had never had anyone who would wonder about him after he was gone. 

Linda, he barely knew. It was Maze’s decision what to tell her, but she was looking at him imploringly, seeking out a truth she perhaps didn’t really want to know. He decided to offer it to her anyway, and let her deal with the consequences knowledge brought.

“I doubt we’ll be back,” he said, with all the finality of a shut door. The barista called out his name, earning him a few looks as he got up to retrieve the to-go cups. He thanked her, then returned to the table, standing awkwardly. 

Linda looked up to him. “Is that what you want?”

Honesty, he decided, _was_ unkind. “No,” he said dryly. “But I’m a walking paradox, what can I say.”

She touched his hand. “Maze told me about –” she faltered. He nodded once in understanding, urging her continue. “And I understand. But maybe, it’s time to consider taking charge of your own destiny?”

The words were true, and as far from what he wanted to hear as possible. Anger built itself swiftly and easily inside him, a rage that he kept contained and which only found outlets when the pressure became too great. These last few days had him skirting around the edge of a blowout, and with no substances to help ease the transition he found himself nearly bursting the cups in his hand.

“How could you presume to _understand?_ ” he asked, unable to control the rise of his voice. “Can you even fathom what it was like?”

Linda raised her hands placating. “Lucifer –”

He wanted to stop, but found he could not. “ _Years_ – my entire youth – spent in fear of the very man who was supposed to be my protector? My example?” He stumbled over the words. “ _Years_ spent as a scapegoat, as a – a punching bag, a warning to my siblings not to misbehave?” The coffees shook in his hand. Linda looked very sorry for even asking. He was sure people were trying not to stare. “I was studying to become a professional pianist, did you know that, too, when he broke four of my fingers?” Lucifer barked out an incredulous laugh. “And yet he still has the audacity to call me his _favorite son._ To let me ‘spread my wings’ and leave, but _only_ on the condition that I come when he calls. So, please, Doctor, tell me how, exactly, I am to _take charge of my own destiny!_ ”

He shook. He was glad the coffees had not exploded in his hands; he didn’t want to have to dig out another suit. Linda leaned back in her chair in shock at his outburst, and part of him was willing him out the door, yet he remained rooted in place.

“What am I supposed to do?” he asked quietly, the same question he asked himself every time he thought of his father, every time it was time to leave. The same question that haunted his youth, that he asked his mother, whose answer had always been the same: _survive._

Linda took a breath and straightened, making sure to look him right in the eye. “That’s for you to decide,” she said delicately. “Only _you_ can ever make that choice. Even if it seems like an impossible one.”

“I can’t,” he whispered.

“Yes,” she said strongly, full of faith. “You _can._ ”

 

The agitated energy would not leave him, no matter how fast he drove. He made it all the way to the turn off for the hotel before steering back into traffic, earning his a couple of honks and angry, indecipherable shouts. Lucifer paid it no mind, and set his course for elsewhere.

 _Yes, you can,_ she had said, so full of conviction that her voice echoed in his head. Could he? Not defy his father, he could never. But could he – 

He hated to even think of the answer, but could he, possibly, convince Chloe to join him? To leave L.A. behind and go with him, wherever he was sent, after a visit to his family home? Would she come with him? Why not? There was only one reason he could think of: money.

He called Maze, and, shouting over the din of wind and traffic, told her to take care of it.

 

\--

 

Chloe was sitting at her dining room table, papers spread out before her. She’d just finished talking on the phone to a buyer and was still absently holding it in her hand when Lucifer burst through the front door like a gale, startling her out of her chair and sending papers flurrying to the floor. He looked around wildly before spotting her. His hair was disheveled, his jacket askew, and a wild kind of fear in his eyes that she had only seen in her father’s goats when they realized they were heading to slaughter.

“What happened?” she asked. 

He slammed the door shut behind him with a bang. Like a man possessed, he strode over and took her in his arms, kissing her with a fervor that left her more fearful than aroused. He held onto her tightly, backing her into the kitchen counter – oh, how this would have been welcomed four days ago – and lifted her onto it, sending the dishrack clattering against the wall and knocking a few things into the sink. Her body reacted before she did, her knees lifting and tightening around his hips to pull him close, her arms winding around his shoulders, her hands in his hair, her mouth kissing back with equal passion. What did her body care that her mind whirled in confusion, when it knew better than she did that this was what she wanted, had wanted, since she met the man? 

Thank God Trixie was at school, because when he attacked her neck, kissing and biting down to her collarbone, the sounds that left her were none that she would ever want her daughter to hear. 

“Lucifer,” she said breathlessly, her nails digging into his shoulders, trying to slow him down. “Lucifer!”

He pulled back enough to look her in the eye, holding her thighs and pulling her flush against him. He leaned in for a kiss but she managed to hold him at bay. He blinked, confused. She opened her mouth to ask again – what happened – but his words came tumbling out first.

“Come with me,” he said, desperately. 

“Where?” she asked.

He wavered, his eyes still darting between hers and her lips, licking his own. “Home.”

“To London?”

“To anywhere!” he said, manic. “We can go anywhere. Just have to make a stop there first. Please. Anywhere in the world, Chloe, anywhere you want to go, I’ll take you.” Slower, he dragged his hands up the back of her shirt, his eyes falling to her collarbone. “Please,” he whispered.

Her mind whirled with the possibility of it, even though the rational part of her stamped it out like a sudden fire. It couldn’t be so bad, she thought, to pretend, just to live in the fantasy - even just for a few moments? An all-expense paid trip around the world, with this crazy, generous man – what girl hadn’t fantasized about the same scenario? She knew she couldn’t go through with it. Well. _Part_ of her knew she couldn’t go through it with, but like her body, part of her was more than willing to indulge him.

His hands snaked around her back, his short nails scraping softly against her skin, sending shivers of delightful pain down her spine. The things she had imagined he could do with those deft, sure hands.

“Ask me again,” she said softly, holding his face in her hands. “After.”

The sound that left him then, as he leaned in for a kiss, was half a moan and half a strangled cry; she wondered what had happened in the last few days to cause such turmoil in his soul. 

She soon found she could push _that_ thought to the back of her mind, quickly becoming concerned with other matters. Like how to get up the stairs without letting him go, leaving them stumbling and laughing like teenagers trying not to be caught; there’s a lightness, a joyfulness that she hasn’t felt in years, as though she’s been on a long, exhausting trip, and home is finally in sight.

She resolutely plans on ignoring the sensation, deep in the pit of her stomach, that something has to go wrong. It can't always, can it? Sometimes, good things happen? The right things? The right guy? What was Chloe Jane Decker so afraid of that she thought pleasure had no place in her life?

She elects not to think about it.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning: smutsmutsmutsmut FEELS

Lucifer pushed her up against the wall as soon as they were up the stairs, blinding stumbling them toward the bedroom. Not that he seemed to care, content to let her lead them down the hall. He left one hand wrapped firmly around her waist, holding her close, while the other searched along the wall for the doorknob. She couldn’t remember the last time someone put so much effort into kissing her, at least not since high school when a bit of heavy petting as far as anybody was ready to go. It was dizzying, to be so unexpectedly and thoroughly accosted. 

Chloe broke the kiss long enough to drag him into the bedroom. He slammed the door shut behind her, loud in the empty house. A spark of fear jumpstarted her already-racing heart at the sound. Suddenly, Lucifer spun her around to face the door, pushing her up against it and using his height to keep her caged there.

He breathed heavily into her ear, taking her in. The idea that he was trying to control himself made her bold. She slid her hands up to meet his, pressing back against him with equal firmness. He let his nose drift over her neck, brushing the hair off her shoulder. The length of him is hard against her, hard and hot against her ass. 

He pushed against her slowly, placing a ghost of a kiss just below her ear. To be so fast, then so slow, made her feel like she was spinning in place, held in only by his gravity. He dragged his cock against the curve of her ass in an unceasing, maddeningly slow rhythm. She arched, relishing his sharp intake of breath, and raised an arm over her shoulder to hold onto his. 

“Let me fuck you, Chloe,” he says quietly, his breath hot over the shell of her ear. His hands snake down to the hem of her shirt and lift; one goes up, to cup her breast outside her bra, while the other undoes the button on her jeans. It dips lower, pushing down the short zipper from the inside. It’s as though every nerve ending in his body is humming, getting ready to sing. “Please,” he says, punctuating the word with a bite to her earlobe and a shallow thrust, which has her gripping onto him. A noise slips out of her that she’s not sure she’s ever heard before, and he’s barely touched her yet.

She nods.

He pushes lower, gently cupping her over her embarrassingly damp panties. The friction is delicious, and not nearly enough; it’s all she can do not to whimper, not to beg him for more.

“Say yes, Chloe,” he murmurs against her neck, pressing his fingers against her a fraction more firmly, rubbing them against the fabric in light, tiny circles.

“ _Lucifer,_ ” she manages. “ _Please._ "

She can feel him smile. “Please what,” he teases, dripping a finger beneath her panties. Finding her as slick as she is makes him jerk against her – a small victory, she thinks with a smile. She could get mad at him, for being such a freaking _jerk_ about it, but there is no part of her that cares right now. She turns her head so his lips are on her cheek, the bit of stubble there rough and masculine and sending signals directly to where he’s teasing her entrance. 

“Fuck me,” she says, and he hitches, “you ass.” 

He spins her again so her back is against the wall. She tilts her face up, expecting a kiss, but instead his hands have moved to hold her waist, and he’s looking down at her like she’s something _special,_ something to be cherished. She moves to take off his shirt, but he doesn’t budge. She whines.

He laughs, and his smile brightens his eyes like she’s never seen before. His hands move to span her ribs – those big, precise hands – sweeping his thumbs along the underside of her bra.

Unsure of what to do, unsure of what _he’s_ doing or thinking or planning – though the thought that he’s thinking about what to do to her is enough to keep her breath coming in shallow pants – she reaches for his waist jacket. It takes about all the concentration she has left to undo the few buttons there, and meanwhile he’s done nothing but stare at her. She chances a look into his eyes, curious.

He seems to be searching for words, and to Chloe this is really not the time for soul-searching, but she lets him think it out, contenting herself with slowly undoing his belt as he watches.

“You’re a miracle,” he says, and she’s not quite sure what to say to it. He speaks like it’s a benediction instead of compliment. The self-conscious part of her wants to say something back, to make a quip – _I bet you say that to all the girls_ – but the look in his eyes gives her pause. Because it looks a lot like something she’s only ever seen hints at before.

It looks a lot like love.

He leans down to kiss her, softer and sweeter than anytime before. She grabs at his lapels – _why_ is he wearing so many layers, who does that – and feels him smile against her lips at her eagerness. Eyes closed, with only a breath between them, she feels confident enough to speak. “You’re not so bad yourself,” she tells him, light and teasing.

He moves to kiss her jaw. “The highest of praise,” he jokes back, but she doesn’t miss the way his hands grip her harder at her words. They slide around to her back, gentle. She pulls him in for another kiss and swing them around, so she’s walking them backward toward the bed.

“Like praise, do you?” she asks sweetly.

He hums. She’s sure the noise is meant to be noncommittal, but she can’t help but wonder. Is Lucifer Morningstar – yes, _that_ Lucifer Morningstar, the one whom she’s heard about from at least six other people as providing them with _the best night of their life,_ feeling, suddenly, shy?

She eases the jacket off his shoulders, his waistcoat soon following, and he tugs the white dress shirt loose from his slacks. Her knees are against the mattress, but he’s made no move to shove her back onto it. She runs a teasing hand over the front of his zipper – he’s still rock hard, surprising her a little – before making quick work of his buttons, bottom to top. Her hands run over the newly-exposed skin there and he takes her mouth in a hard, bruising kiss, throwing her off balance. He holds onto her, catching her from falling, and in a flash he’s got her shirt on the floor, like some kind of goddamn magic trick. 

Her hands move to push the shirt off his shoulders, to follow their fallen brethren, when she stops mid-push. “Do you want to leave it on?” she asks.

He looks alarmed. “Do you want me to leave it on?”

“No,” she says a little too quickly, and he relaxes marginally. “I want you to be comfortable.”

He takes her wrists in his hands, kissing the inside of one before letting them drop. He shoves the shirt the rest of the way off, suddenly urgent, along with his shoes. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know,” he promises. Then, cheekily, while tugging off her jeans in a swift motion, “After.”

It’s only then that he pushes her back. She falls onto the bed and let him take off her jeans the rest of the way, balling them up and throwing them to the opposite corner of the room; she can’t help but laugh at his need to get them as far away from them as possible. She’s still got her bra and panties on, perfectly serviceable but not exactly part of Victoria’s Secret collection, and also her socks. She lifts an expectant foot.

“Sexy,” he teases, kissing the inside of her knee as he slides them off.

“Hmm,” she agrees, leaning back on her hands as he continues to kiss up her leg. “I bet you’ve never seen anyone sexier.”

“Never,” he tells her, and looks into her eyes as though to assure her he means it. She gives him a bit of a look. He surges up, pushing her to lay back with a hard kiss. She pulls his lower lip between his teeth, and catches the breath he gasps out. “Never,” he repeats. 

She pushes herself up on the bed until she’s laying down on a pillow. Lucifer leaves her mouth to kiss down her jaw, the spot behind her ear. Her hands can’t stop roaming the broad expanse of his shoulders, the whipcord-tight muscles in his arms as he holds himself above her, a knee between her own. She lifts one to hold him in place, content to continue to feel him pressed up against her. She couldn’t have realized how touch starved she was, not really, even though somewhere her mind has clocked its been at least a year since she had Dan last – 

Lucifer manages to unsnap her bra and pull a newly-bared breast into his mouth at the same time, effectively stopping whatever thoughts she had floating around. She’s nearly naked and he’s still got his fucking _pants on_. She tugs at his waistband as he sucks on a nipple, hard, sending her back arching of its own accord.

“Not – fair,” she pants, tugging more forcefully. 

He releases her breast, leaving it with a light, playful nibble. “Nuh uh,” he says, “Tit for tat. I owe you a favor.”

She knows what he’s talking about, and wants to say _You don’t owe me anything,_ but gets as far as the first syllable before he’s kissing down her stomach, and she decides to let it go. His stubble burns against her soft, sensitive skin there, but she is reveling in the line between pleasure and pain like she never has before. Something about Lucifer makes her feel sure, and safe, and beautiful, like maybe she is something special. Something special to him, at least. 

He can’t seem to stop nibbling at her, kissing her, and then he’s got her panties at her knees – she lifts, and he takes them off all the way – and slipping a long, delicious finger inside her. His thumb circles her clit, then, without preamble (as though expecting a bell, _ding,_ ready set _go_ ) his tongue replaces his thumb, circling slowly, sucking lightly, all the while a languid finger, then two, pumps inside her, the tips curling at just the right spot. _How_ does he know her body like this, she wonders, the thought floating by as a moan slips out, how can he _possibly_ know just where to touch, just how much pressure to give her, better than she’s ever done to herself?

His tongue moves around her slick folds like it was designed to, working in such perfect concert with his fingers that she thinks it’s a shame he never became a composer, never became a musician. Obviously his mouth is in the right business. Her fingers snake into his hair and hold tightly; he moans at the pressure she gives, and the sound reverberates through her core, sending her hips higher, chasing the sound. She keens, letting her fingers scratch at his scalp.

The pleasure builds in her like a dammed river, swift and pulsing and _pushing_ and its all she can do to give over control, to let go and go under. “Lucifer,” she says, and it sounds strangely like a plea. “Lucifer, _please,_ I – I,” and he’s hitting _there,_ just _there,_ again and again, hard and soft at the same time; she can feel him rutting into the mattress, he’s other hand digging at the soft flesh of her thigh, his arm curled around her leg protectively like a hug, and the idea that he’s enjoying this almost as much as she is brings her right to the edge. She runs her fingers through his hair, matching the pace of his movements. “Good,” she manages, so close, too close, “boy.” He thrusts deeper into her, harder, unconsciously, and just that bit of extra pressure sends her over. She comes, stuttering, gasping, holding his head, his tongue still circling, bringing her all the way through it until she can’t stand it anymore, until she’s trying to push him away and even a few seconds more after that. 

She throws a forearm over her eyes. Every part of her body is on fire, the only coolness coming from the spot she’s left on the sheets. Lucifer blows gently on her and she startles, closing her knees around his shoulders and laughing in surprise. She moves her arm in time to catch him rest his chin on her hipbone, swiping a thumb across his glistening lips and staring at her like she’s a starlit sky in the desert.

“What’d you do to me?” she asks, a laugh still in her voice. She moves a bit of sweat-stuck hair off her forehead. 

His eyebrows raise. “Me? Now you know how it feels.”

She laughs again and he nuzzles into her hip, planting soft kisses along the crease as she lifts her knee closed, trying to shield herself from any more ministrations. He moves up, draping an arm over her middle protectively as his head hits the pillow. She curls into him, letting her eyes flutter closed. He’s still deliciously hard against her stomach, his trousers tented comically; it’s less funny because she knows exactly what lies underneath, exactly how long and thick he is. She’d shiver with anticipation, but she’s far too relaxed. 

She undoes his zipper and slides her hand over him before pushing down the waistband at his hip. “How are you still dressed?” she asks, speaking against his lips before capturing them in a kiss. 

“There’s no rush,” he assures. She pulls back enough to see the whole of his face, soft in the late-morning glow; the sun hasn’t made it way to the front of the house yet. She’d closed the curtains on the windows last night and didn’t bother to open them this morning, with her daughter yelling from downstairs that she was going to miss the bus. It darkens the room a bit, but his deep, brown eyes catch the little sunlight and reflect it as though glowing from within.

She teases him with another stroke. “You’re sure?” she asks. She rubs her legs together experimentally. A little shock goes through her. He was rougher than she ever was with herself. If he notices the hesitation in her face, he doesn’t remark on it. She strokes him again a bit harder. She can tell he’s faltering, a little. Trying not to need it. He kisses her once and pulls back, running a thumb across her cheek and pushing her hair away from her face.

She stops, but only to slip her hand beneath his boxers. The head is slick with precum, and she can feel some of it on the boxers, cool against the back of her hand. He closes his eyes and his lips part, pink and lush. His eyelashes are long and dark against his pale skin. It’s almost indecent that he’s so pretty, all mussed up in her bed.

“You’re beautiful,” she tells him, running a thumb over his slit and spreading the bead of liquid there. She kisses him softly, then pulls away, resting her head on her pillow, content to watch the tiny reactions play out on his face. She continues to pump him, slow and steady. “You’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen,” she says, her voice low. His eyes flutter open, blinking as though waking from a dream. All his attention is on her. All that focus, that singular, penetrating concentration that made him so successful. It was frightening, to have it at first. Now she finds herself craving it. “Your hands,” she continues softly, reaching down and taking the hand he has on her hip to her mouth. She kisses one bruised knuckle, then another. “I have dreams about these hands.”

She slips his index finger into her mouth, giving his cock a little squeeze as she does. He watches her, open mouthed, and licks his lips. She slides it from her mouth with a pop and places it on her breast. She curls the toes of one foot around the hem of his pants and gives a little tug. “Please?” she asks.

He seems reluctant to move, but does. She lets him go, stretching her arms up above her head as he sits up, taking off his socks before shimmying out of his pants and boxers. It gives her a long, unanticipated view of the scarring on his back, a fact which she knows he knows and has done deliberately.

The marbled tissue is not what she thought it was, at first. Her glance at them as he drunkenly staggered away from her gave her the impression that they were two, symmetrical scythe-like scars just on the insides of his shoulder blades, and she became consumed with wondering how such a thing was possible. But now, even in the dim, golden light, she could tell they were not perfect. There were two deeper scars, turned like half-moons toward one another, between his shoulders, but there were others. Smaller, thinner lines, streaking haphazardly between them, pulling as he stretched forward.

She pushed herself upright. They were both naked, now, and she could not help but feel a bit like Adam and Eve before the temptation and rejection from the Garden. Naked, and known to one another, and unashamed. She swings a leg around to his other side, letting a knee rest against his ribs while the other relaxes at his side. He holds onto the leg, keeping it against him, his fingers trailing smoothly up and down her calf.

She gently places a hand on his lower back, well below the scarring. He stills. 

“Tell me where you’re going,” she said, feeling the bump of the vertebrae under her fingers. 

“My family’s estate. Near Southhampton.”

Another vertebrae up. She follows the bump with her finger with the smallest bit of pressure.

“Why?”

“To see my father.”

Another bump. And then another. Up, up.

“Why?”

He pauses; she does too. “He sold the restaurant.”

“Out from under you?”

“He owned it. Majority shareholder. I just worked there.”

She continues up, curious at his humility but satisfied by the answer. “So you’re going back to see why?”

“No.”

She pauses again. She’s reached the middle of his back, the scars still several inches out of reach. “Lucifer.”

He turns his face but takes a moment to meet her gaze. “So he can tell me what to do next. Where to go.” He turns back away. She catches the redness in his cheek, in his ear, but wonders if it’s not a trick of the light.

She swallows. That doesn’t sound right. Not for Lucifer. “Why?”

He huffs out a laugh, but there’s no heart in it. “You should’ve been a detective,” he teases. She can sense his reluctance to answer. Not just in his avoiding the question, but in the way he’s holding his shoulders, tight and a little strained.

“And you want me to come with you?” she asks, deciding not to press.

“Yes.”

Another bump. Another inch closer.

“For how long?”

The question hangs in the air before he turns to face her fully. She’s left with her hand dangling in the air. He takes it before she can drop it, and holds in gently in his own. 

“For as long as you want. As long as you’ll have me. I don’t know where I’m going next. I never do. I landed in L.A. completely by chance.” He looks down at their hands, and a long moment passes. “My father is not someone who is easily disobeyed,” he says slowly, choosing his words. He glances up, and in it she sees a plea to understand. She wants to. He continues. “He has strict… parameters, in place. My siblings and I are permitted to move within his… sphere of influence. To go beyond it is unconscionable.”

She touches a finger to the back of his shoulder. “And you went beyond it?” she asked, trying to keep her voice even.

He answers with a half-smile and a quick raise of one eyebrow, which makes her smile, if only for a moment. “I’ve never much been one for rules,” he states. His smile fades. “He held me over a fire pit,” he begins without preamble, and she wants him to stop, to take it back, to go back a moment to the smile and the quick joke. But he continues, quickly, as though to get it out and over with. “The larger bits on the sides are from where he held me against the metal caging. The others are from the flames.” He pats the back of his neck. “At least I’ve got all my hair, though,” he says with exaggerated lightness, before letting his hand fall away.

Chloe can tell he’s uncomfortable, that he probably didn’t want to tell her. She doesn’t want to react, to put him off, to make the situation more awkward for him than it needs to be. But he’s lived with that for years, she guesses, and she’s only lived with it for a few seconds. She lets the sorrow and rage wash over her blindly, hot and cold all the way to her bones. 

“Yeah,” she says sternly, nodding absently. 

“Yes, what, exactly?”

She looks him dead in the eye. “Yeah,” she repeats, feeling the rage of all the mothers in her ancestral line before her when someone threatens her family. Perhaps it goes further back, into deeper time, that animal fury of a mother defending her young from a predator. “I’ll go with you.”

She expects him to be happy about it, but its all he can do to stare. “What?”

She’s still nodding – she stops that. “I can think of a few things I’d like to say to your father.”

He swallows. “No.”

And like that, she’s completely deflated. “Why not? What could he possibly do to you now? To me?”

“More than you know,” he says wearily, as though the conversation has long since lost its spark. “He is exceptionally connected. A man behind the curtain of the economies of the world. War. Famine. Disease. Drought. All at his beck and call, for the right person, for the right price. He’s dangerous, and if I were not already certain that he has a file on you, I would pray to God that he never learns your name. There are a handful of people in the world who have his direct line, and they are not people whom you would ever wish to meet. He is… untouchable.”

“And that gives him the right to touch you? To control you?” She slips her hand out from his. She doesn’t care if she’s being cruel – how she’s managing it with all her clothes off, she doesn’t know – but she can’t help it. Can’t help reacting to the words he’s saying, as though he’s been brainwashed to believe his father is some sort of Higher Power. 

But the look on his face has her failing. Even just the motion of taking her hand back has left him completely crestfallen. 

She holds his face in her hands. “Stay,” she says, not even caring that she’s begging when she’s supposed to be strong. “Stay here. With me. Stay in L.A. You can start a new restaurant. You can do whatever you want. You can follow your own path.”

She hopes – she hopes beyond hope – that he says yes. That he agrees. That he nods. Anything.

His hands coming up slowly to cover her own, to take them away from his face.

Anything but that.

She lets the realization sink in. After months - _months_ \- of happiness, of light flirting, of letting him into her life, he’s just going to leave. Go, like that. Not because he wants to, and with no promise to return. A fantasy about her running away with him was all he could offer.

How many times did Chloe’s heart need to break before she learned?

People always leave. _Always._

“When are you leaving?” she asked quietly, unwilling to make the words any louder than they needed to be.

“Plane leaves at 8:05 tomorrow night. I’m sure Maze will have us at the airport well before then. She likes to give the TSA a hard time.”

There’s a finality in that, a recognition that this was something that happened, that could not be stopped; that this was something normal, to uproot his life at the behest of his father. She was rooted to the Earth, to this place, to this farm. She would not leave it to be blown about like a leaf on the breeze. 

But he was here, now. He chose to be here. He wanted to join her, to be with her, in his last moments in L.A. He wanted some place to settle down, if only for a short while. She could see that. She could see his desperation to find a place to call home. 

He could have found it in her.

“Lucifer,” she said, letting her eyes drop to his lips. “Kiss me.”

He cradled her jaw in his hand and gently ran the pad of his thumb over her bottom lip, watching.

Tomorrow, after he said goodbye, she would neatly gather up the remains of her broken heart and bury it in the yard. 

But tonight. Tonight, she could give him a home and a family, so he could know what it was supposed to feel like. So he could know how it felt to be loved. 

Even if it was just this once.


	22. Chapter 22

Lucifer fell into small rituals to avoid his thoughts. Last minute checks. Coffee with a splash of whiskey. He and Maze went through the fastest security lane – held up only by her reluctance to pass through a metal detector and opt for a pat down instead – and soon it became easy to zone out. First class. The dehydrated smell of a plane’s interior. Champagne, then bourbon, then scotch. Flirting with the flight attendants, though his heart wasn’t in it. He and Maze commenting on them in Afrikaans. It was a nonstop flight from L.A. to London, ten and a half hours in the air. They chased the rising darkness as it settled over the turning world below. 

Somewhere over the dark ocean Lucifer observed Maze was staring out the window instead of the phone in her lap. They’d been chatting on and off, but there was only so much to say before the cabin settled into a kind of restless slumber. Only two people in the first class cabin had their reading lights clicked on, a man reading a hard cover book, and a woman scrolling through an iPad. The flight attendants continued their rounds, but a hush had fallen over the place. 

“Mazikeen?” he said softly, leaning forward to get a better look. 

In all his time with her, he’s never seen her cry. The tears were exactly as she was at her best: swift, silent, unnoticeable unless you knew what you were looking for. They fell onto her chest like drops of rain.

His stomach dropped at the sight. Maze liked to joke, sometimes, that she swore an oath to him. He had never before considered his friendship with her to be at the expense of her own happiness.

“I’m sorry,” he said. 

She nodded once.

 

Sometime in the night he dozed, and when he drifted awake he found she had removed the armrest between them and settled herself against him, her head on his shoulder, her body curled protectively toward his. One of her hands lay palm up on his thigh, familiar, intimate. The sun shone through the window, brightening the space, but it was an early-dawn light. A few murmuring voices wafted through the air; it must have been one of them that woke him.

He pressed his cheek to her forehead. Maze was a fearsome woman. Tightly measured, so fully in control of her body that he’s seen her make MMA fighters and ballet dancers equally jealous. She could snap a man’s finger in half before he could blink. Throw a knife with such graceful precision that when it embedded itself in the wall, Lucifer would swear it was trembling from fear of displeasing her. She was the only woman he’s ever begged to fuck him, the only one he’d trusted with causing him carefully controlled pain. Maze lived on the edge between pleasure and pain. Even her signature dishes, the ones people asked for by name, walked the line between too-spicy-to-handle and god-I-can’t-stop. Her smile was wicked, her humor sharp, her mind dangerous. 

He’d never seen her be vulnerable, never seen her be with anyone and thought it might be love, never considered that she, too, might feel like she’s leaving something worthwhile behind. 

He linked their hands together, careful not to wake her. She stirred a little, opening her fingers. He pushed his hand deeper into hers. _“For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch,”_ Lucifer remembered, _“And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.”_

Pilgrims, indeed. What else could Lucifer be? What else could his family home be but a sacred site of suffering and ecstasy, to be returned to again and again for propitiation and punishment? 

Lucifer was the wayward son, not Maze. Why she stuck with him, he may never know. It wasn’t as though he plucked her from poverty or a bad situation. She had been doing quite well for herself when they met. He could offer her nothing but himself: his companionship, his mentoring, his baggage. 

She was very loyal, very quickly. It were as though she had been searching for someone to protect and follow, a mentor and higher cause she could devote herself to completely.

He knew it was the other way around. He wouldn’t have made it this far without her. He was _absolutely_ certain of it, in fact, because she’d saved his life every time he overdosed, every time he drunk himself into a hospital, every time he decided life wasn’t worth living. She was always there, to pick him up off the floor, to make sure he didn’t choke on his own vomit, to kick his ass when he recovered. 

And she was here, now, too, as if by his side was the right place for her to be. 

Lucifer wondered what he had done to deserve such a friend.

 

They landed early in the afternoon. A sleek, black car waited for them outside the chaos of Heathrow. The driver recognized Lucifer on sight and opened the door for them without a word. It was a two-hour drive to the estate. No one spoke.

 

-

 

Chloe decided not to tell Trixie Lucifer had left until she asked. Why inflict such an emotion on a child until it was absolutely necessary to do so? 

Unfortunately for Chloe, Trixie didn’t wait very long. 

When Lucifer lingered in her living room that last afternoon, Trixie was happily watching T.V., completely oblivious to any turmoil between the adults behind her. Or, at least, she blissfully pretended to be. When Lucifer said his goodbye to her, Trixie leapt off the back of the couch and ran to him, throwing her arms around his waist. 

“Look,” she said, pointing toward her bedroom door. Chloe had helped her find the tape earlier, but she didn’t know why; now she could see that she had placed a pink and glittering sign on her door. _No boys allowed,_ it read, _Except Lucifer. And Dad._

Lucifer read it, and patted the top of her head. Chloe thought, in his silence, he said more than any empty praise could. Trixie hung onto him for another few seconds before slipping off, plastering a smile on her face, and saying “bye!”

Chloe walked Lucifer out the door. Anything that could be said had been said. 

She watched him drive away until the car was out of sight, and a little bit after that, too.

 

Chloe had finished the chapter of _Harry Potter_ they had been working on and closed the book. 

“When’s Lucifer coming back?” Trixie asked. 

Chloe carefully placed the book on the nightstand. “I don’t know, monkey. I’m not sure that he will.”

Trixie nestled deeper under the covers. “He will.”

Chloe wanted to believe it was true, but she feared the reason her daughter had for her certainty. Feared the idea that someday she would have to explain such grown up things to such a young mind. “What makes you say that?”

“He’s like a magician,” she said assuredly.

“A magician?”

“Yeah. He disappears, but he always comes back. Even if he doesn’t show you how he did it.”

Chloe screwed up her mouth, hiding a smile. She tickled her daughter. “Remind me to monitor what you’re watching on T.V.”

Trixie laughed, holding the darkness of the empty house at bay, and for a moment – just a moment – Chloe believed her.

 

\- 

 

Lucifer’s family estate was situated a short distance from the channel, on an acreage that was smaller than he remembered. It was encircled by a tall, black security fence. The driver buzzed through the front gate, and the car made its way up a long gravel driveway that swung around to the front of the house. The grass was perfectly green and golf-course short. Lucifer watched it go by, vaguely remembering that the grounds offered no real place to hide. The sky was a hard blue, with the hazy, ever-present threat of clouds one expected so close to the ocean. 

The house was a stalwart, stout, Georgian-style manor, flat-faced and brown. Tall windows stared out at them exactly as he remembered, a face with too many eyes. A valet met them at the front entrance and opened the car door. No, not a valet, Lucifer noted, unless they came discreetly armed nowadays. Maze followed him inside. 

The interior was neo-classical in design, with columns and archways and intricate trim. The dark hardwood floors had been polished within an inch of their life. The smell never changed, and it brought Lucifer back to exactly where he didn’t want to go.

“I hate this place,” Maze said, breaking the silence.

Lucifer nodded in agreement, knowing better than to voice his dislike out loud. Father had ears everywhere. “Might as well get this over with,” he said to her instead. He continued deeper into the foyer while she ducked away to the left. Going to the kitchen, no doubt, and then probably to the wine cellar.

In the open, airy space leading to the curved, sweeping stairwell, Lucifer always got the impression that something was wrong. The interior seemed too large to fit inside what one could see from the outside. It messed with perspective, and transported visitors into an uneasy state of mind. It was all by design, of course. 

Lucifer quickly jogged up the stairs, under the watchful portraits of his ancestors. The house was eerily silent. Growing up, there had always been noise. Azrael practicing on the piano downstairs. Raphael muttering to himself as he studied. Amenadiel training out in the yard, grunting under Michael’s watchful eye. Even small Uriel, everybody’s shadow, never shut up. His mother on the phone, servants speaking amongst themselves, his father banging around in his office.

All was silent, now. They had all gone. He wondered what that meant.

Lucifer stopped at his father’s office door, taking in a deep breath. He set his jaw and steadied himself to knock.

“Come in,” said that voice, the voice he would be happy to die never hearing again. The voice that coated his mouth with bile.

He entered. The office was sparse and modern, all clean lines and glass. The desk was in front of a window overlooking the back of the estate, and the gardens there, less impressive in mid-winter. Lucifer had to quickly decide what part to play. He held them all in the front of his mind like an actor, waiting for his father’s cues.

“Lucifer!” he said, rising from the chair behind his desk and clapping his hands together. Happy father it was, then. Happy son, coming right up. “How was the flight?”

“Fine. Dad,” he added quickly. The other man came around the desk and gripped Lucifer tightly by the shoulders, holding him at arm’s length as though to get a good look at him. He was older now than Lucifer remembered – that happened when you saw someone once only every few years – but the age seemed to weigh on him. He was still tall, not quite as tall as Lucifer, and still somewhat slim, in a bespoke gray suit that hearkened back to an earlier style. His thick, dark hair had been streaked with gray. Still clean shaven – Lucifer had never seen him with a beard – and a smile that never seemed to quite make it across his face. His face, which was now lined with deep crevices around his eyes and mouth, so striking to see after spending so much time around the young and beautiful and botoxed.

“Good,” he said, letting Lucifer go. “Good.”

They stood like that for a moment before his father returned behind the desk and took a seat. Lucifer followed suit, sitting on the edge of the leather armchair that he remembered from childhood. 

“I need you in New York, son,” he began. “One of my client’s sons is opening a new restaurant, and I’d like for you to help him get settled, show him around, that sort of thing. You like New York.”

“You want me to… babysit?” Lucifer asked, gauging his father’s response.

His father studied him quietly for a moment. “I’m sure you’d find many opportunities there to hone your craft.” 

Lucifer couldn’t help the disbelieving huff that escaped. “I don’t need to _practice_ anymore, father.”

“Yes, I remember that ego,” he said coldly. It hit Lucifer like a frozen wind, that warning in his voice. The tone that was to be obeyed. 

Lucifer found it in himself to stand. “I’d like to go back to Los Angeles.”

His father leaned back in his chair. Lucifer waited for it, for the simplest of words: _no._ There was no arguing with “no.” Any other word offered wriggle room, a space for debate, a way in for an argument.

“Very well.” Lucifer looked up. His father opened his hands. “All you had to do was ask.”

 

Lucifer left the room and shut the door softly behind him, taking in deep, even breaths to offset the shaking in his hands. _That can’t just be it,_ Lucifer knew. It had to be another trick, a long con – how long would Lucifer wait for the other shoe to drop? The anxiety of living with that fear was almost enough to send him to New York. 

Almost.

He quickly and quietly made his way down the stairs, trying to go unnoticed, trying to make sure no one even knew he was here lest they remind his father and he change his mind.

“Luci!” a voice boomed out, just as he reached the bottom of the stairs. Lucifer closed his eyes in annoyance.

“Amenadiel. And here I was thinking everyone had grown up and moved away.”

His older brother beamed at him a familiar smile. “Someone has to look out for Father.”

“Yes, and I’m sure he pays them all very generously. If you’ll excuse me,” he continued, swiftly making his way to the front door. Much to his annoyance, Amenadiel followed him out. The car that brought them in had not yet pulled away. Small miracles.

Maze was leaning against the back door, a bottle of scotch in each hand. “So where are we going?” she asked, eyeing Amenadiel cautiously.

“Miss me?” he asked her.

“Bite me,” she shot back.

“Well,” Lucifer said eagerly, also shooting his brother a look, “Father asked that we go to New York. I informed him that we were going back to Los Angeles.”

Maze snorted, then sobered. “You’re serious?”

Lucifer grinned, then opened the car door, pushing her off it and climbing inside. 

Maze offered Amenadiel one long, last look. 

He leaned in, a glint in his eye. “How did you like the goat?” 

She stilled. “That was you?”

"I'm always watching, Maze." He straightened, and spoke only for her to hear. “Lucifer will do as father asks. You will help me.”

“I won’t,” she said firmly. "Not anymore." She turned her back to him and got in the car.

Amenadiel watched them go. 

“Wanker,” said Lucifer, turning back around. “What’d he say to you?”

“Nothing,” she told him, watching the figure fading in the distance. “Let’s go home.”


	23. Chapter 23

“I’m not sure this is such a good idea,” Linda whispered to Maze. They both stood behind the newly-refurbished bar, watching Lucifer excitedly direct the movers to place a piano in the lower room. They grunted with the effort, which Maze apparently enjoyed. “And he hasn’t said anything?”

Maze shrugged. “I’m not really good at the whole human emotion, thing.”

Linda shot her a withering look. “You robot.”

Maze pouted. “I thought I was a demon.”

“Robot-demon, then.”

She grinned. “Sounds horrible. It’s perfect.”

“If you ladies are done –” Lucifer called out, gesturing excitedly to the piano like a child showing off a birthday present. Linda and Maze exchanged looks – Linda with a significantly more worried expression – but made their way over. Lucifer sat and brushed his fingers over the keys, pressing down a few experimental notes. “What do you think? Needs a tune, but the man should be here shortly.”

“It’s beautiful,” Linda admitted. “But is this really what you want?”

Lucifer looked around at the room. He had bought the nightclub on a whim when he landed back in L.A. two weeks ago, drunk on change and scotch. It had been some sort of Cuban bar then, with the occasional illegal MMA fight, which Lucifer had stumbled upon and paid handsomely too watch two grown men beat the shit out of each other. It was more cathartic than he wanted to admit. The changes he’d made so far had gone surprisingly quick – bribery was a great motivator – and there wasn’t much left to do. The black marble floor had been polished, the new lighting put in, the tables set and booths revamped, the bar stocked, the dancers auditioned and hired. Maze had reluctantly agreed to tend the bar. Lucifer had also purchased the penthouse suite upstairs, and it had taken less than a day to have his things moved over from storage. 

“I don’t understand the question,” he said, with a curious look to Maze. “This is the perfect way for me to spend my retirement.”

“You’re retirement?” Linda repeated, astounded.

“Of course. How else would I describe no longer being under my father’s thumb? I’m _free,_ Linda. I define who I am. _Me._ ”

“I just worry that –”

Lucifer rose suddenly, cutting her off. “It’s done. I’ve grown tired of playing a part in his play. If dear old Dad doesn’t like it, well. He knows where to find me.” 

With that, Lucifer strode over to the bar and busied himself with pouring a drink. They watched him gulp it down, then pour another. Linda and Maze whispered to one another harshly, secretly. Linda opened her mouth to speak, but Maze tried to cut her off with a hand on her wrist. 

Linda was not deterred. “What about Chloe?” she asked. “Have you told her you’re back, yet?”

Lucifer lowered the glass from his lips, but did not answer. Maze walked Linda out, speaking low all the way. Lucifer watched them go. Linda would not understand, even if Maze tried her best to explain. There was only one thing – one _person_ – Lucifer knew could be used against him, could be used to manipulate him into doing what his father wanted. 

He would not allow Chloe to be a pawn. 

Even if it was killing him. 

 

Ella was unloading a second crate from the back of her black, souped-up Civic when Chloe’s red truck backed into the same driveway, a small, local grocery store in Koreatown. Ella waved jauntily at Chloe, then at Dan as he came out of the passenger side to help. 

“You don’t have to pretend with me,” Dan had been saying, as Chloe concentrating on reversing the truck without hitting the other vehicle. “He was your friend. He should have told you he was leaving.”

“He did tell me,” she corrected. “Whatever. It’s been two weeks. I’m over it,” she said pointedly. She killed the engine and they got out. “Please change the subject.”

Ella’s enthusiasm soon morphed into a deep sigh as she watched them begin to unload. Crates of lettuce, mostly, but also kale and cauliflower. “Man, I miss Lucifer.”

“Ella,” Dan interrupted. “Do you mind?”

“Oh. Sorry Chloe. I guess he hasn’t called you either.” Chloe shook her head and busied herself with unloading. “Which is a total bummer, cause Linda said –”

“Linda’s heard from him?” Chloe asked.

“Yeah,” said Ella, then was distracted by the owner coming out with paperwork. She took her time, as she always did, chatting with him. Chloe was trying very hard to appear disinterested, but why would Lucifer talk to Linda and not her? “Anyway,” she continued. “I guess there’s something going on tonight that she wanted us to go to. Like a girls’ night. Sorry, Dan.”

“I think I’ll be alright,” he said with a smile, swinging out the final crate, then moving to speak with the owner.

“Say you’ll be there,” Ella said, whipping out her phone and pulling up her texts. “C’mon, Decker. You gotta live a little!”

_Maybe,_ Chloe considered. Her self-imposed isolation had been doing her no favors. Even Dan, who was an expert at not noticing her emotions, had commented on her retreat into herself, into the work. “Linda says she’ll meet us there at 8, but we can show up whenever.”

“Where?” 

“At this new place. Supposed to be like, a cool, sexy new piano bar.” She looked back at the phone. “It’s called Lux. I’ll text you the address she gave me.”

“Good to go?” asked Dan, returning to her side. 

“Yeah,” she told them both. 

Ella beamed. “You totally won’t regret it,” she said, and Chloe had to smile at her enthusiasm.

 

Dan was quiet on the ride back to the house. 

“Do you want me to drop you off, or –” Chloe asked. “– or, do you want to come back? To the house.”

“Chlo –” he began, but she cut him off.

“I was thinking about the camping trip. Trix’s spring break is coming up. It might be a good time to go,” she said, glancing over. “After everything that’s happened, I just. It might just be good for her to have that kind of stability back.”

Dan remained silent. 

“Isn’t that what you were saying?” she asked, stopping at a red light.

“We can talk about it when we get home. When you drop me off, I mean. If you don’t mind.”

She hummed noncommittally. “Or we could talk about it now.”

He sighed, eyes downcast. The light turned green, and she continued on. “I think we’d be lying to Trix. If we pretended to be this happy family when we aren’t.” 

Chloe started to rebuff.

“I saw how upset you were when Lucifer left. And I don’t know what you guys had going on, but –”

She forced herself to say the words. “He’s not coming back, Dan.”

He took it in. “Even if that’s true, I don’t know. Seeing him around – yeah, it made me jealous. But it also made me realize. Maybe it’s time we got a divorce.” 

She blanched. 

“I know he was around because you wanted him around. And I just – can’t do this back and forth anymore. I love you,” he said. She met his gaze. “And I’m still Trixie’s father. I’m not going anywhere.”

She nodded, concentrating on the road. It wasn’t a surprise, in the same way death wasn’t a surprise after a terminal illness. They had been separated for nearly a year, with no forward progress in their marriage. 

But no matter how anticipated, the death of something always felt sudden.

Chloe spent the remainder of the trip in silence, trying very hard not to feel like the whole world had fallen out from under her.

 

A figure lurked in the shadows of the parking garage beneath the building. Maze clocked it; Linda did not. Linda had been blessed enough not to spend her life on the run, constantly looking over her shoulder. No one wanted to live in a hypervigilant state, even if the benefit was to appear as though possessing superhuman-like reflexes. It still wore on the senses, and became exhausting.

Linda drove off with a promise to return, and Maze watched until her car left her sight, waiting.

“You know what I want,” came a deep voice. Amenadiel stepped out from the shadows. “We want the same thing.”

“We do not.”

Amenadiel came around to face her, smug in a well-fitted three-piece suit. He could almost belong among the other sharks. “Mazikeen,” he said, pityingly. “Haven’t I kept you safe all this time?”

She snorted.

“Haven’t I kept you hidden?” he asked, the sharpness of his voice incongruent with his cool exterior. He circled her. “Protected your _very_ generous assets, your identity?” He paused directly behind her. “Miss Mazikeen Smith, indeed. It would not take more than a phone call for your family to find you and strip you down clean to the bone.”

She worked her jaw, her fingers itching. “I’ve worked for you for long enough, Amenadiel.” She turned to face him, a snarl in her lip as she looked him carefully up and down. “No. Means no.”

He took in her gaze. She had won that battle, but could sense the war was not over. “I’ll do it myself, then. All I need from you is to provide me with a weak spot.”

Saying nothing, Maze turned on her heel and left. 

 

Clubs were… not Chloe’s scene. At least not since her “wild youth,” a phase which lasted approximately seven months during her short-lived acting career and in which she 1) lost her virginity to a P.A. named Douglass in a hotel room booked explicitly for that purpose, 2) got drunk for the first time, 3) had her first cigarette, 4) had her first joint, and 5) went skinny-dipping with the rest of the cast in one of the hot tubs post-production.

The cast had gone to a few clubs during their time together, and she joined a couple of people from her acting classes when they went, but she never really got a taste for it. There was a desperation in it she didn’t like, an anxious need to have fun often leading to increasingly escalating behaviors. 

But this… Lux, Ella had invited her to, looked different. _Felt_ different. Familiar, almost. She stood at the top of the stairs, taking in the space before spotting Ella and Maze at the bar. Long rows of bare bulbs hung from the ceiling, their lights dimmed and glowing over sleek black and midnight blues. The music was upbeat enough that some people were dancing, but low enough to encourage conversation. A piano sat off center, its lid closed. The place was busy, but not frantic; most people were sitting at booths or tables, or leaning against bannisters with drinks in their hands, speaking and laughing with ease. Dancers moved their curvaceous, black-clad bodies like center pieces, on tables and on a strip along the wall, while waitresses mingled through the crowd with silver carrying plates. What struck her most was the fact that everyone was beautiful. Not L.A. beautiful, with plumped lips and fake breasts, but all sorts, as though the population inside had evolved differently than the rest of the outside world. She wasn’t sure what to make of it. 

Chloe tugged discreetly at the hem of her shirt, a long-sleeved, black crop top that she paired with a red, short skirt that she would _swear_ was longer when she bought it. The combination showed a lot of leg and a little slice of skin at the top of her stomach and bottom of her ribs. 

Ella spotted her and waved, sparkling in a black-and-white strapless number. Maze looked dressed to kill, but she always did: she practically invented tight leather pants. 

After a quick, bone-crushing hug, Ella spoke. “You missed the grand opening!” she complained.

“Yeah,” Maze injected, taking a drink. “The owner likes to hear himself talk.”

Chloe laughed. “Glad I missed it, then. Sorry. Dan was late to pick up Trixie.”

Ella shook her head in sympathy, then looked over Chloe’s shoulder. “That’s okay. You’re here for the best part.”

She gestured to the brightly-colored concoction in her hand. “The drinking?” she guessed.

“Nope,” Ella said, the word popping off her lips. Maze slipped around them and behind the bar.

“Hey, I don’t think you can go back there,” Chloe began, but Maze laughed darkly and grabbed another glass, pouring herself another drink and giving the other to Chloe before raising her glass. 

“To bad decisions,” she toasted. 

Chloe eyed her suspiciously as a few of the lights dimmed, and the first few notes from the piano began. She took a sip – whatever it was, it was probably more expensive than she would’ve have chosen – and turned to watch with the rest of them.

The floor had cleared, the DJ in the booth quieted, and for the second time that day Chloe felt the world drop out from under her.

_Oh, Sinnerman, where you gonna run to,_ Lucifer asked, singing into an old style microphone suspended from the ceiling. A spotlight illuminated the piano. _Sinnerman, where you gonna run to? Sinnerman, where you gonna run to, all along them days?_

It was, unmistakably, _him._ Lucifer's back was nearly turned to her at the bar, but she would know that profile, that voice, anywhere. Chloe glanced back. Maze watched him adoringly from behind the bar. 

_Well I run to the rock. Please hide me, I run to the rock. Please hide me, I run to the rock. Please hide me, all along them days._

She had never seen him so calm, so clear, before, as if he were completely in his element, as though _this_ was what he was meant to do all along. His hands flowed along the keys easily and effortlessly as he sang. It was beautiful, she had to admit, the elegance of it all. 

_But the rock cried out, I can’t hide you. The rock cried out, I can’t hide you – the rock cried out! I can’t hide you, all along them days._

He bounced a little as he sang, unconsciously she imagined, as his voice rose and gained more power. _So I ran to the Devil,_ he sang, and the way he looked up as though seeing no one else in the room made her wonder if he did. _I ran to the Devil, he was waiting. I ran to the Devil, he was waiting, all along them days._

Why was he here? Why was he here, doing this, looking as happy as can be – without her?

_And I cried, Power!_ he sang, as it reached its crescendo. _Bring down that power, Lord! Bring down that power to the – Lord!_

Applause quickly followed and Lucifer drank it in, taking a look about and smiling at his new-found fans. Music gently resumed and he rose, speaking to a few people before looking toward the bar. 

If God was merciful, He would have been kind enough to have the earth swallow her up. But no. God was cruel, and it was a cruel, pointless world where hearts silently broke in the night, where people could feel alone surrounded by friends, where Lucifer had the _audacity_ to look shocked to see _her._

Maze clinked their glasses together behind her. "Bad decisions," she said again.

Chloe, unable to move from the spot, agreed.


	24. Chapter 24

Lucifer approached the bar with feigned looseness. Chloe stepped in front of him, her hands reaching out to touch him of their own accord. It pained him to see the look on her face, the way all the color had drained for her, but now was neither the time nor the place.

“You’re okay,” she said, disbelievingly. 

Lucifer resisted the urge to look over his shoulder. His father had spies everywhere, and tonight he was sure they would be out in full force – what father wouldn’t want a minute-by-minute report of his _favorite son’s_ first independent endeavor? 

“Of course I’m okay, don’t be silly,” he said, pushing gently past her to take a waiting drink from Mazikeen.

Chloe stood her ground. “Lucifer. I was really, really worried about you.”

His heart fell in his chest. He breathed out, then downed the drink. He leaned closer, a flirtatious smile on his face. She leaned back, unsure. 

“Have we met before?” he asked, more loudly than necessary.

“What?” 

“Come now. I could swear I’ve seen you naked.”

She took a shocked step back. He snapped a hand out and pulled her to him. He lowered his voice to speak into her ear. He didn’t like the way she stiffened in his arms, but he deserved it. “There’s an elevator, at the top of the stairs. Go to the top floor. I’ll meet you there.”

He released her gently. She took a hesitant step back, but something in her face fell into place. An understanding. 

Lucifer was gone in a flash, back into the crowd. 

 

Chloe leaned against the bar, turning the glass in her hands.

“Isn’t it so cool he’s back?” asked Ella, trying to lighten things. “I thought he was going back to England, or wherever.”

“We did,” Maze told them, readying a drink for someone else. “Short trip.”

“What happened?” Chloe asked.

Maze lifted a shoulder. “He wanted to come back. So we did.”

“Just like that.”

“No,” said Maze, watching Lucifer over her shoulder. “I don’t think so.”

 

Chloe finished her drink and took the elevator upstairs, stunned to find what she’d stepped into. A warm, orange light lit the space from the bar at her right, deepening the shadows of an extensive library. A fireplace was lit on the balcony, throwing its glow over the outdoor space, its glass doors thrown open. A cooling breeze came gently through the room, a nice reprieve from the warmth downstairs. A kitchen was nowhere to be seen, hidden away somewhere, but a piano took up the center of the room and led her eye up toward an open bedroom.

It looked lived in. Personal. Comfortable. Familiar. Like a home. And here she had been thinking Lucifer wasn’t capable of such a feat. Had he had this, all along? Had she been only kidding herself, to see his other place and think it was his main residence, when there was barely anything there to suggest it? 

It left an uneasy feeling in her stomach, the same feeling that had followed her up the stairs. It was as if there was another side to Lucifer she could not imagine, one that he had kept from her all this time, hidden away in a penthouse suite. As if he had this entirely different life that he didn’t want her to be part of.

As if she really hadn’t mattered to him at all.

 

The elevator doors slid open so soon that Lucifer must have seen her leave and gone straight up after her. He stepped out, breathing a sigh of relief.

“What is this place?” she asked.

“This is my home,” he said, sweeping out an arm. “Finally. I don’t have to leave. Ever again. Not if I don’t want to.” He quickly closed the distance between them, reaching out. She stepped back. 

“Your… home.” She repeated. “It’s nice,” she admitted. “A little dark.”

He shrugged, taking a look around himself. “Hmm. So it is. Not from the balcony, though. I swear you can see all of downtown,” he started to walk over, talking over his shoulder. “And there is a hot tub, in case you ever wanted to –”

She couldn’t take it. Couldn’t take his persona, the mask of glee he was wearing to cover up whatever lay beneath. She had seen it too many times, when he wanted to avoid a conversation. She imagined it was as easy for him to slip into as a suit of armor, to protect his heart.

Well. He had broken hers, and she wanted answers, not a run-down of his new place. “What am I to you, Lucifer?” she interrupted, unable to keep the hurt from her voice. “You come back and just –” She took a moment to gather herself. “You came back, and bought a nightclub, apparently, and you didn’t think that was important enough to tell me? To tell me you were back?”

He sighed, then directed her toward the couch to sit. She didn’t budge. 

“I didn’t tell you because I – I couldn’t.” 

She waited for more.

He passed her to go behind the bar – his place of refuge. How many times had she seen him retreat into a glass? “My father let me go,” he explained, pouring a drink. “With apparently no strings. Just told me that if it was what I wanted, then I should do it.”

“And that’s bad.”

“It’s not _bad,_ Chloe. It’s unprecedented. It’s extraordinary. It’s… terrifying.” He shook his head. “I don’t expect you to understand.”

“Maybe I don’t,” she admitted. “But I thought. I thought we were friends, you know?”

She did not want to look at him then, but could not stop herself. His dark eyes seemed fathomless in the low light, as dark and empty as the cold of space. But not unfeeling. No, his face was as naked to her as they had been with one another, when the secrets between them were unlocked from the chests they kept them in and brought out within the safety of her sheets.

“I… suspect my father has ulterior motives. That giving me the freedom I have so yearned for is nothing more than a ploy to return me under his control. A lengthening of the rope, if you will. And I realized my greatest weakness, my greatest fear –” 

His voice faltered, and in that moment she could not help but forgive him entirely despite the anger still coursing through her veins. Or, maybe, because of it. She was angry because she cared, cared so much more than she could stand.

She came around to face him, sucked in by his magnetic presence. Why did he have to vibrate so strongly on her frequency? Her life had been perfectly placid before she met him, but now it shuddered with ripples of consequence.

“– was you. So, I thought, if I could distance myself from _you,_ protect _you,_ from his wrath, that I could save you from –”

“Him,” she finished. “Not you. _Never_ you.” He bowed his head. “If something happens,” she continued, and his head snapped back up in alarm, “I’d rather be on your side than kept in the dark.” She touched his hand.

That was all it took. He caught her mouth in a bruising kiss, walking her suddenly backwards as she ripped at his jacket and waistcoat until they were on the floor. Her rear hit the piano, striking a few discordant notes before he lifted her onto it. It was fast, and messy, and she probably ruined forever a three hundred dollar shirt by tearing it off him, but she couldn’t care less. Skin was what she wanted, and she was rewarded with miles of it.

Whatever secrets lay beneath the skin, she could not see. The scarring he tried so valiantly to hide from her was deeper, much deeper, than the ones on his back, but to her it didn’t matter. What mattered was that he was here, now, with her, and she held onto him like a lifeline thrown to someone drowning: one last bit of buoyancy holding her sinking life aloft. 

He shoved down her panties and up her skirt, not bothering to remove more than her shirt, which lay dangling off the keys. It was desperate, the way he pushed himself into her, and she could not help but wonder if she were not the only one who had felt the water above her head.

She cupped his face in her hands, breathing in his ragged breath. “Lucifer,” she said softly. “I’m here. I'm here.” 

She chanted the words like a prayer until he slowed, until she felt him believe it, too.


	25. Chapter 25

Amenadiel had better things to do than this.

Of course, that wasn’t _necessarily_ true, but his ego did not allow him to consider otherwise. As the head of his father’s extensive security team, it was _technically_ part of his duties to monitor anyone coming to or leaving from the family estate. And it was true – there was a network, not of “spies,” as his younger brother so eagerly called them, but of monitors, of informers, who kept tabs on the rest of the family’s comes and goings. Ariel, the sweet girl, had her own security personnel (as any daughter of their father and premier pianist would), so Amenadiel contented himself with monthly status reports there. Michael was a ghost by design, off doing God knows what, God knows where, for God knows who. Raphael insisted on once-weekly phone calls to their mother (and _only_ their mother), on his schedule as to not interfere with his hospital duties. Azrael had forsaken her musical training to join the RAF (her copilot and navigator was a long-time informant; Amenadiel often wondered if she ever knew that, based on the kinds of things he would report). Uriel still lived at home and had no threats to him whatsoever. And lastly, Gabriel. He was happy enough to travel the world in leisure and on their father’s dime, content to write books that he’d never publish, and call in at noon (his time) every Friday.

Amenadiel did not have a monitor – that he knew of, at least. It was not necessary. He had never stepped a toe out of line, had never challenged an order, had never thought to question a decision. He had seen what his father’s wrath could do and did what needed to be done to avoid it. He couldn’t understand why Lucifer insisted on doing things the hardest way possible. He always had to be right, even when he was wrong; had to be free, when freedom meant insecurity; had to run away when he was fifteen, be lost for three weeks until Amenadiel found him and dragged him back home, only to be punished in the most punitive way possible while they were all forced to watch. 

Amenadiel was the only one allowed to visit him in the hospital, to get a status on his recovery. Even their mother was barred. Amenadiel tried to explain, about duty, about family, about responsibility. But he never could find it in himself to apologize. 

Lucifer never looked at him quite the same, after that. 

Amenadiel sighed, looking at the report on his desk. He clicked on a lamp, belatedly realizing that the sun had set. The white paper shone brightly beneath his hands as though illuminated from within. 

Lucifer was doing the same thing, again. Running away. This whole business with moving back to L.A. What good could come of it? His father had not said a word about it, other than that first night when he said, “If it is his wish.” As though _desire_ had anything to do with it! He did not need to say more. Amenadiel could see the truth in his eyes. It was a simple line of cause and effect: his father was upset, Lucifer made him upset, Lucifer would have to fix it. 

Simple, really. Lucifer would have to do as their father requested. 

Now all Amenadiel had to do was figure out _how._

 

Maze had been no help. He hadn’t expected her to be. She had failed to keep him updated on Lucifer’s whereabouts for months. He was going to have to find Lucifer a new informant, and soon, though perhaps one not so easily lured in by his so-called “charms.” Her work had been sketchy at best, even when she was newly hired. Amenadiel had felt some guilt, he could not deny it, and so let the woman find her own way instead of keeping her to a schedule, though he realized now that was where the fault lay. Too much slack, too much freedom. 

And Lucifer had the _nerve_ to claim it was their father who abandoned _him,_ when Lucifer himself had not called in years!

Oh, well. Maze would have been the easy way in. He supposed he could always just drag Lucifer back home, as he sometimes had to in the past, but that meant a lifetime of expecting the same behavior from his little brother. 

Amenadiel swirled the red wine in his glass. The former _Paradiso_ had been turned into quite a fine restaurant. He almost wondered what it had been like when Lucifer was running things. He was tired of chasing after the man. Something needed to change. Lucifer needed to become _willing_ to do what their father asked. He lacked _motivation._

He tasted the red. Full and perfect.

Perhaps he needed to stay a while. Figure out what drew Lucifer back to this city, at this time, over any other. There was time enough to discover the facts. He would wait. 

And he would watch.

 

\--

 

A small groan came from the dining room table. Lucifer smiled. He recognized it well. “What is it this time?” he asked, wiping his hands on a dishtowel and emerging from the kitchen. 

Trixie pushed away a bowl with a small finger. 

He chuckled, then popped one of the offending Brussel sprouts halves into his mouth. He groaned exaggeratedly. “Delicious.”

She stuck out her tongue.

“Try one,” he urged, “for me.” She looked suspicious, but he could tell she had relented. He returned to plate the rest of the food, a simple chicken and risotto dish – the child had not taken such a shine to his more exotic creations, but give him time – and had just finished putting them on the table when Chloe returned from checking the mail.

She walked slowly, a few torn open envelopes beneath several papers – bills, he recognized – her brow furrowed as she read.

“Everything alright?” he asked, untying the “kiss the cook” apron she had bought for him (supposedly a gag gift, but he insisted on wearing it whenever he was over, and had taken to pointing at it whenever he wished for a kiss).

“Yeah,” she said absently, continuing to read. “I think there’s been a mistake. I’ll call the bank tomorrow.”

He gestured for her to sit beside him before plating a few of the greens onto Trixie’s plate. “What kind of mistake?”

“Well, there’s more zeros than there should be. But in the good way.”

He took a bite, then forced himself to speak around it. “Oh, that’s right. That was me. Sorry.”

“You?”

He swallowed. “I paid off all your bills. And debt. And the house. The farm.” He took another bite. He had more of an appetite these last few weeks than he ever had in his life. And he had been sleeping better, even with the odd hours at Lux. “Before I left,” he clarified.

Chloe stared, her gaze only interrupted as Trixie speared a Brussel sprout, closed her eyes, and put it in her mouth. She opened one eye, still chewing. 

“Victory,” laughed Lucifer. 

“You did that?” Chloe finally asked.

“Oh, it was simple. Just a bit of olive oil and garlic, roasted in the oven at –”

“No,” she smiled, shaking her head. “The money. You really did.”

He looked confused. “Is that a question?”

“I guess ‘why’ would be the question.”

“ _Why_ should never be the question. Though it was purely in selfish interest at the time. I’m sorry I forgot to tell you – I forgot about it myself. I thought that the only thing keeping you in Los Angeles was the issue you were having with money.” He winked at Trixie. “I was wrong.” She continued to state. Lucifer was unsure what to do with the scrutiny. “You’re food’s going to get cold,” he said.

She took in a deep breath, then started to eat. “Thank you,” she said.

“You’re welcome,” he said automatically back.

“No,” she said, catching his eye. “Thank you.”

He shifted a bit uncomfortably. Chloe waited another moment, then asked Trixie what she learned in school that day, and the rest of dinner continued in a kind of warm familiarity Lucifer was quickly becoming alarmingly addicted to.

 

Lucifer threw back on his suit jacket and accepted a hug from the child before Chloe walked him out. She would be getting her ready for bed soon, and Lucifer was due back at Lux. 

She ran her fingers down his lapels, smoothing them. They stood out on the porch, alone in their bubble of privacy. He had never anticipated enjoying the quiet near as much as he did. It had always been oppressive, silence, always begging to be filled. He did not feel the need to fill it with her, though he enjoyed that, too. He felt as though he could sit with her for hours and not need to say a word. 

“Do you have to go back?” she asked sweetly. “I like it when you spend the night.” 

He took her hands in his and kissed them. “Unfortunately. But hopefully not for too much longer. Just until I know what he said was true.”

She nodded, but looked disappointed. “You’re ‘safety measure.’ You might have to explain that one to me, again.”

He ran his thumb over her knuckles soothingly, and looked over her shoulder down the road. It was empty. “I know it seems strange, out here, to think of someone watching. But I have lived my whole life being surveilled. It’s not paranoia when you’re right,” he reminded her. She smiled, but it was weak. “So, at least for a while, I’d like my appearances to be deceiving. I’m sure my father already knows about you, but if I can keep him from knowing how much you mean to me, then we might be left in peace.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You know, you might be smarter than you look.”

“Oh, thank you.”

Something in her gaze flickered. “So. Anything going on tonight?”

He brightened. “A bachelorette party, of all things. Should be quite entertaining.” He kissed her quickly, then started off the porch. 

She held fast, stopping him before dropping his hand. “When you say you want to keep up appearances –” she started, then faltered. He came back up the steps, curious. “It’s not something we really talked about.”

He understood her meaning. He kissed her deeply, then lifted and swung her around until her back was against the post. He gently let his lips brush against hers as he spoke. “You and I are real,” he said softly. “That’s all that matters.”

She let him go then. He bounced down the steps to the Corvette and drove into the night. 

Chloe watched until the car was out of sight, wrapping her arms around herself, and trying hard not to think about the fact that he didn’t really answer the question.

 

\--

 

Amenadiel knew that making his presence known would only serve to antagonize his brother, to make him work doubly hard to hide whatever it was he was sure to be hiding. So he stayed in the shadows, just out of reach – a far cry from his usual M.O., in which he showed up at whatever five-star hellhole his brother dug himself into and take him wherever he needed to go. Lucifer’s kicking and screaming had gone the way of his youth, so he had to content himself with being a pestering annoyance, pushing all the buttons Amenadiel didn’t want pushed. _Daddy’s boy_ was always a favorite. 

He did let himself into the club, though. He had to see it for himself. Lucifer was too paranoid to have security cameras installed, so he was safe there. 

The place was closed in the afternoons, and the lock on the door was child’s play, so he could explore at his leisure. It was dark and cool inside, polished and gleaming under a few bare bulbs. He poured himself a drink and took a seat at the bar, turning around to face the rest of the club and leaning against the countertop. The place suited his brother, he had to give him that. But it wasn’t as though property values mattered. There was no reason why this _Lux_ couldn’t have been transplanted exactly as it was in New York, if Lucifer felt he must own such a place. 

A quick, short whistle got his attention, followed by a hard, sharp thud. He looked down, already knowing what it was but wishing to make a point. 

Maze had thrown a knife, and it had embedded itself into the wall between his knees. 

“A little off the top next time,” she said, emerging from the shadows near the DJ booth and stomping over. “Get out.”

He shook his head at her. “What is it about my brother that has inspired such loyalty? When I am the one who you should be loyal to?”

She let out a smooth, hard breath. “Secrets. And lies,” she snarled. 

He rose, chuckling. “Oh, that’s what bind you together, then. I see. But I wish you’d think about it. You could make this considerably easier on the both of us.”

She softened, but did not relent. “Go to hell. And stay there.”

He took out his phone. He did not have the number, but he could bluff a little. “How long has it been since you last spoke to your mother?” he asked, turning it over in his hands and pulling up the contacts list. “Ten years? Twelve? I’m sure she’d happily dispatch a few of your brothers to bring you home.”

He was an expert in micro expressions, and hers were speaking volumes. She took a step closer, tilting her chin up. Defiant.

 _Fine._ He slipped the phone back in his pocket with a sigh. “I’ll be here a while. Let me know if you change your mind.”

He took the back way out, leaving her standing spotlighted in the center of the room, so perfectly illuminated that Lucifer could see the angry twitch of her jaw. 

He wondered which kiss of hers had been the first betrayal.


	26. Chapter 26

The lights of Lux twinkled like stars in the night, and Lucifer figured they were probably just as capable of granting wishes. He took another body shot off of the taut stomach of – Jessica? Britney? McKenna? He couldn’t remember; it didn’t matter – before licking a line of salt from her belly button and ending the entire affair with a kiss, taking the lime wedge from her mouth into his. It was manic, in the club, the party raging around him, spinning into oblivion like a cast-off sun, its light shining onto no one in the dark abyss of empty space. The beat of the music filled the atmosphere around him like ether, numbing. The shots had ceased to taste like anything but the waters of Lethe, burning down his throat in their quest of forgetting.

Maze was busy behind the bar. He tried to keep his distance from her, but not enough to suspect anything was wrong. She had told Amenadiel to stick it where the sun don’t shine, but how could he know it was true? How could he trust her words, when he knew better than anyone her ability to read a room, to find danger, to know if someone was listening? It had never occurred to him that _she_ might be the one with an ear to the door.

_How could I have been so stupid?_ he wondered, when the evidence was right in front of his face. _All this time._

He took another shot. Let her report this, then, back to Daddy, back to Amenadiel. It was just another night, was it not? Lucifer charming men and women into his bed, Lucifer getting black-out drunk, Lucifer with a smile on his face that went no more than skin deep. The same old Lucifer.

Maybe if he fell far enough, they’d leave him alone.

It seemed to work before, after all.

 

It only took Amenadiel sixteen hours to find his man. A phone call, a lunch, a back-room meeting, a little money exchanging hands, a favor to be granted for later, and then sitting across from him was a short, greasy-haired white man with a porn-stache and a smile that said _I’ve got whatever you need, brother._

“Malcolm Graham,” he had introduced himself, wiping a hand on his pants before offering it. Amenadiel declined. 

They sat together at a diner somewhere where the neon lights of the city didn’t shine so brightly. The man had a cornucopia of breakfast dishes and sandwiches in front of him, currently devouring a plate of French fries smothered in melted cheese and bacon. Amenadiel viewed his body as a temple. This man apparently viewed his as a landfill. He had dealt with his type before. Greed drove them, more than anything. The constant lust for _more_ , never quite able to get their fill.

“What can I do you for?” he asked. It was a courtesy. They both knew why they were meeting.

Amenadiel slid over a closed file. Malcolm licked his fingers clean before flipping it open. A dossier, with all the basics. Lucifer’s name, age, birthday, photo, last known residence, properties.

“Looks like you already got what you need to know about the guy,” Malcolm said breezily, closing the file. “What is it you want me to do, exactly?”

Amenadiel leaned marginally closer. The diner was all but empty, but he knew how voices traveled. “I need to know why he wants to stay in L.A.”

Malcolm chuckled before he could continue. “City of Angels!” he said, with a flourishing gesture. “Best booze, butts, boobs and blow, man, anywhere. Real California quality. Who wouldn’t want to live here?”

Amenadiel suppressed a sigh, but leaned back out of reach of the man’s breath once more. “Can you do it?”

“Can I do it,” huffed Malcolm. “You’ve got yourself the best tail in Los Angeles, brother. I'm a ghost. Nobody knows I exist.”

Amenadiel looked him over. It wasn’t hard to believe. “Let’s keep it that way,” he agreed. Malcolm offered his hand once more.

Reluctantly, Amenadiel took it, shaking it once before letting it drop.

“How do I find you?”

“Everything’s in the dossier,” Amenadiel answered, standing. “The sooner I can get my brother home, the better.”

“Brother?” laughed Malcolm, taking a look at the picture once more. “That’s –”

He looked up. Amenadiel was already gone.

 

Lucifer awoke, tangled in limbs, to a familiar voice. He blearily opened one eye, only to shut it again at the brightness coming in from the living room. 

“Out, out,” Maze was saying, followed by a couple of groans that were not hers. A shuffling of feet and fabric, a few choice words, and the ding of the elevator departing all followed, before her muffled boot steps on the marble came into the bedroom. 

He blinked his eyes open once more. She was the picture of disapproval, hands on her hips, silhouetted by the light. The figures on either side of him stirred as he rose enough to sit. Maze started finding various clothes and throwing them onto the bed.

“What time is it?”

“What time is it?” she repeated, shooing the man and woman out. Lucifer stole a quick kiss from the woman before she could scoot off the covers. “Eleven,” she answered, as the two passed her on the way out.

Lucifer fell back onto the pillows with a groan. “It’s practically dawn,” he complained.

“Yeah,” she agreed snarkily. “On Tuesday.”

He sat up. “What do you mean, _Tuesday?_ ”

“What I _mean_ is that you haven’t able to form a complete sentence in _four days._ Get up. You reek of sex.”

He hummed, shutting his eyes. “Lovely. Must be doing something right.”

He heard her huff. “Lucifer.”

He didn’t answer. 

“Lucifer,” she tried again.

He groaned. “What is it this time, Mazikeen? What could you possibly say to me that would make any difference –”

“Chloe’s here,” she interrupted. He bolted upright, the pounding in his head following soon after. “I managed to get her to wait downstairs. So you’re welcome.” He stilled. She made to walk away, but couldn’t help herself from stopping. “What? You don’t want to see her?”

He swung his legs off the edge of the bed, holding his face in his hands before rubbing his eyes. “No,” he said simply. “I can’t. She shouldn’t even be here.”

“Why?” Maze asked.

He burst to his feet. “You know why!” he roared. She took a surprised step back as he advanced before holding her ground. “You, of anyone, know _why_ and I will not have you pretend with me any longer!”

Her face fell, but she managed to hold it at bay. He paced a few steps, running his hands through his hair. “What are you talking about?”

He stopped, and there was almost a smile on his face when he spoke. “You betrayed me, Maze. Feeding information to my brother, behind my back! Had you told me, we could have worked something out, we could’ve been a team, but you kept it from me! All this time you’ve kept it from me!” 

“Lucifer –”

He took in a shaky breath. “Out,” he said. She didn’t budge. “Get out!”

Finally, she moved. Lucifer punched the wall as the elevator doors closed, his fist going right through it. It was only a façade of stone, after all.

 

Chloe watched, curious at first and increasingly worried, at the multitude of hungover and half-dressed people exiting the elevator. Maze followed a short while after, with a shake of her head. She wasn’t going to let her go up.

“What’s going on?” Chloe asked as Maze walked them out, following the crowd. 

“That was the best night _ever,_ ” said a blonde to a brunette, who was throwing back on a short jacket. 

Chloe stiffened. Maze held onto her arm, forcing her to keep moving.

“Yeah,” the other woman agreed. “Insane. And he did this _thing_ –”

“With the feather duster?” asked the blonde excitedly.

“No,” said the brunette, “With the can of whipped cream. What did he do with a feather duster?”

They reached the parking garage and went in a different direction, chatting together. Chloe finally stopped, and Maze let her hand drop, silent.

“Why is he doing this to me?” Chloe asked quietly. She looked into Maze’s eyes. “Is his dad really that dangerous?”

Maze dropped her gaze. “You have no idea.”

Chloe nodded once, starting to walk away. Her footsteps faltered, and she turned around. “Do you think –” she took in a breath. “You’ve known him longer than anyone. Is he – is he worth it? Worth this?”

Maze didn’t answer. Not in words. She took a step back and to the side, pushing the handle and holding the door open.

Chloe looked into the darkness she was offering. The few voices of the party goers had long left, the sound of their cars echoing off the stone walls of the parking garage, round and hollow. It was an offer, nothing more. Maze could not tell her what to think, what to say, what to do. She was giving her a choice where Lucifer had not, even if it was out of fear of her own safety. She should turn around and return home. Her business had started to succeed again, if only for Lucifer’s generosity, and she found herself busier with work than ever before. Her heart didn’t need the strain of another failing relationship. Her heart couldn’t take another break.

She took in a deep breath and walked through the door, praying it was the right thing to do.

 

\--

 

“Hey buddy,” Malcolm said into the phone, keeping a trained eye on his targets through the binoculars. “What’s going on?” 

“What’s taking so long?” Amenadiel growled through the speaker. Though the street was busy, and in broad daylight, no one looked through the windows of Malcolm’s car. It was Hollywood, after all. Paparazzo abounded, and only tourists ever gave him a second look.

“Yeah, about that –” he started, adjusting his gaze. The mark and the blonde had started to walk together down the boulevard. He gestured every so often to a storefront; she linked her arm in his and shook her head, laughing. He was rich, that much had become obvious. Not just from the bank accounts Malcolm had managed to get a peek at, either. A lot of people had money, but this guy was willing to spend, spend, spend. Now _that_ got his attention.

This _Lucifer_ was certainly more flushed with cash than Amenadiel seemed willing to pay. 

“What was it you wanted your brother to do, again?” he asked.

“That’s none of your concern.”

“It is though, buddy, cause you see,” he grimaced, “I just don’t know if our deal is an adequate reflection of the time and effort I’ve put into the case.”

Amenadiel laughed on the other line. “You want more money.”

“No, no, no! I just need some more, you know, details. So I can get to know your brother better. Figure out what makes him tick. So, just remind me again. What do you want him to do?”

Amenadiel’s sigh blew into the speaker like static. “Our father –”

“Who art in Heaven,” said Malcolm, unable to help himself.

Amenadiel ignored the comment. “Asked that Lucifer go to New York for business. And instead of fulfilling his responsibilities, he’s out there doing – well, you tell me.”

“Shopping, mostly,” Malcolm provided.

“That sounds about right,” Amenadiel said, then fell silent. “Is that helpful?”

“Super-duper,” Malcolm answered cheerily. He hung up, flinging the phone into the passenger seat. “New York,” he murmured, then smiled. “The big apple.” His smile faded. The mark had finally convinced the woman with him to enter a store. He threw his hands behind his head and leaned back in the seat.

“The big fish,” he said, watching even though he’d lost sight of them. 

For now.


	27. Chapter 27

Malcolm slipped the plush velvet rope outside Lux with two hundred bucks and wink. He didn’t care about the money – he’d just stick it on his expense report. If he played his cards right, he’d be wiping his ass with that kind of petty cash soon enough.

He ordered a scotch at the bar and leaned a hip on the counter, nodding his head a little to the music and generally being ignored by anyone and everyone. No matter. He wasn’t here to scope out chicks. 

The owner was pretty damn visible, which made things almost too easy. He wasn’t used to dealing with targets who quite literally hogged the spotlight. His line of work usually had him tailing cheating husbands or clueless Silicon Valley execs who were crap at embezzling, not dudes like this Lucifer. Were he into guys, he’d probably be into the man, and he was comfortable enough with himself to admit it. He allowed his gaze to linger. Flashy purple three piece suit, perfectly groomed hair and beard. Probably manscaped too, something Malcolm would never be accused of. The man certainly seemed to interest everyone around him, and he wasn’t turning anyone down. 

The night had already started to die down by the time Malcolm arrived. For anyone else he would’ve been okay with coming a little earlier, getting a bit sloshed before meeting. But this – this was the Real Deal, and Malcolm wanted to be as sober as possible for it. Not stone-cold sober, god was he _ever,_ but you know. Enough.

He had another drink and watched from the shadows. 

It must’ve been closer four in the morning when Lucifer finally took a couple up the elevator. Malcolm followed behind, slipping inside before anyone could notice. Lucifer was pretty well occupied in his bedroom, leaving Malcolm the freedom to explore, so long as he stayed out of anyone’s direct line of sight. And if he rocked a chub the whole time, well, that was Lucifer’s fault for making those ladies sound like that. He was only human, after all. He’d pop off for a little tug if this wasn’t so important.

He looked over all the books, and pulled open the desk drawers to rifle through the papers there. He opened the fridge and grabbed a beer for himself, popping it open under his shirt to stifle the sound. It was good, expensive shit. Imported. Guy at least had taste. There wasn’t really anything here, nothing of value knowledge-wise. He was going to have to find more.

He waited in the darkened stairwell until the sounds of sex abated – he was pretty sure he took a nap sometime in that period – and the quiet of sleep prevailed. He emerged carefully, sticking to the edges until he was tiptoeing into the bedroom. He spotted Lucifer’s suit jacket, dangling precariously off a chair, and quickly searched through its pockets. He found was he was looking for easily: a phone. And with no passcode! Malcolm could’ve laughed. He swiped it open, tiptoeing back toward the bar, hidden. 

Too easy. 

By the time he had slipped the phone back into the pocket, the sun was peeking out over the horizon, casting a long shadow from the building. He’d be back again, soon, when Lucifer was awake. Then they could really chat.

 

“Decker farms,” said the man on the other line. 

“Hey, yeah. I’d like to place an order,” Malcolm said, balancing the phone on his shoulder while he cut up a piece of chicken-fried steak. The waitress refilled his coffee, and he offered a greasy smile. She didn’t return it. 

“Sure. What’d you need?”

“I was, uh, wondering. Is there a Chloe Decker there?”

“She’s busy at the moment.”

“Ah, that’s too bad,” he said, popping a bite into his mouth and chewing. “Cause I really kinda need to speak to her.” Silence on the other line had him backtracking. You never wanted to push too hard, too fast when it came to women. “But that’s alright. Another time.”

That placated the man on the other line enough for him to place an order and give him a time and address at which to drop it off. If she didn’t come, it’s not like that would be the end of it. Not for someone who Lucifer seemed to call more than any other person in his contacts. She was _special,_ for some reason. Worth something to him. 

Malcolm let himself imagine just how _much_.

 

There was one more phone call to make. He waited until he was walking out of the diner – no reason to ruin breakfast, after all – and dialed.

“Menny, buddy,” he started. “I got us a lead.” 

The other man listened very carefully, agreeing to meet him at the location Malcolm gave him. 

Then, he headed back to Lux.

 

Malcolm picked at his teeth in the elevator ride up, wiping his finger on his jeans as they slid open to reveal the penthouse. Enough time had passed that the place was empty, save for the sound of a shower running. Perfect. He helped himself to another drink and waited.

It wasn’t long before the water shut off, and Lucifer appeared in a red silk robe, toweling off his hair as he came around the corner. “Did you forget something, darling?” he asked, before seeing Malcolm sitting at the bar.

He looked around exaggeratedly. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Who are you?” 

He put the drink back on the counter and slapped his thighs. “You can call me Malcolm. I’m the guy whose gonna give you everything you want.”

“Is that so?” Lucifer asked, slowly coming down the few steps. “And what is it you think I want?”

Malcolm grinned. “Freedom,” he guessed. “From big bro, from daddy, from anyone who would manipulate you into being something you’re not.” _Bingo,_ he thought, looking at the expression on this playboy’s face. “For a price.”

“Ah,” Lucifer nodded. “There’s always a price.” He waved him off, turning back toward the bedroom. “I’m sure you can find the door –”

“Chloe Decker,” Malcolm said. Lucifer stopped. That got his attention at least. Malcolm drained the rest of the drink and checked his watch, knowing Lucifer was watching him very carefully. “How about this, bud. Let me show you something, and you can decide how much it’s worth. Deal?”

Lucifer glanced at the floor, then nodded slowly. _Hook, line, and sinker._

“Awesome. Get dressed. Don’t want to be late to the show.”

 

Chloe pulled her truck into the small parking garage. It was irregular, to have a drop off somewhere like this, but at least it was a public space. The garage was a new addition to an older shopping center, a spot with plenty of brunch-and-lunch places. She parked in the corner nearest the walk-out beside a couple other cars and got out, coming around to the back to unload. Maybe the guy was a cook at one of the newer spots and didn’t know the whole protocol of it yet. 

Not that it mattered – business was business. She opened the truck bed and pulled the crates forward, but didn’t take them out. He said he’d meet her to help her, and she didn’t know where to go.

After a few moments, a man got out of an adjacent car and approached her slowly. “Chloe Decker?” he asked, his deep voice smooth and friendly. He wore a fitted, gray suit over his built figure, which she allowed herself to appreciate a little, and walked with the swag of one who knew he looked good. Not unlike another man she knew.

“Yeah,” she answered, as he approached. “You Malcolm?”

He stopped a few feet away from her, a respectful distance. “Ah. No. I don’t think he’s coming.”

She laughed, but it didn’t help to calm the sensation that something was wrong in her gut. “I’ve got three crates of produce to suggest otherwise.”

He stepped forward. “Chloe –”

“How do you know my name?” she asked carefully. 

He sighed. “I’m Lucifer’s brother. Amenadiel.” 

She relaxed, but only marginally. “Did he tell you about me?”

He chuckled, then moved to rest against the truck beside her. She felt her guard lessen a little at his friendly demeanor. Surely not everyone could be out to get Lucifer, to get her, like he thought? “Lucifer hasn’t told me anything voluntarily in, well, ages. But that’s alright. He’s still my responsibility, whether he wants to be or not.”

A car door slammed somewhere nearby, then a screeching of tires. Someone was leaving in a hurry. 

“Why are you here?” she asked.

“I was meeting someone else. But I think… that’s…” 

His words dropped away. Chloe followed his line of sight, only to see an enraged Lucifer stalking toward them. Amenadiel pushed himself off the truck and raised his hands. Chloe took a careful a step out of the way. Lucifer looked like he had a fire burning in his eyes, and she wasn’t about to get in the middle of that.

“How long?” Lucifer shouted, swiftly closing the distance between them. “How long have you been manipulating me?” 

“Brother –”

Lucifer didn’t hesitate. As soon as he was within reach, he shoved Amenadiel back into the concrete wall, grabbing him and pulling him upright by wrapping a hand around his neck. 

“Lucifer!” Chloe tried, but stayed just out of reach. He didn’t look at her. 

“Was this all part of father’s plan?” he asked, a deranged smile on his face, almost like this was all a big joke. Maybe it was, to him. “Answer me, brother, before I rip your spine out and beat you to death with it!” 

Amenadiel gripped tightly onto his brother’s arm. Chloe had the feeling that he could have gotten out of the hold at any time, but was choosing to let his brother take out his anger on him. “What are you talking about?”

“What am I – ?” Lucifer laughed, squeezing harder. Chloe had seen enough. She grabbed onto his other arm and tried pulling him away. He ignored her. “Did you think I wouldn’t find out about you two, scheming behind my back?” 

“Lucifer, I don’t know him,” Chloe tried desperately. “I met him just a minute ago. I’ve never seen him before.”

He turned to face her, lessening his grip on Amenadiel. “I can’t trust you!” he shouted. “I can’t trust anyone! I don’t –”

Amenadiel slipped his grasp and pushed him away, breathing hard. “It’s true, Luci,” he said, rubbing his neck. “I was told to come here, and so was she. We were played, like puppets. Someone else is manipulating us both.”

Lucifer’s rage deflated into defeat. “You’re _informant,_ you mean? Mr. Pornstache? We’ve met. I’m going to have to disinfect my bar stool.”

“It’s true,” Chloe added. “Someone placed an order and told me to meet them here.” She touched his hand, focusing his wavering attention. “Trust me. Please.”

“How can I?” he asked her softly. Amenadiel politely pretended not to hear, choosing instead to lean against the passenger door.

Chloe squeezed his hand. “You just gotta have faith, I guess.”

Amenadiel gave them a moment before interrupting. “What did Malcolm want?”

Lucifer snorted. “Money, I imagine.”

“He didn’t say?”

“He asked me to consider what knowledge was worth. Don’t think he expected me to leap out the car, though.” Amenadiel was silent. “Why?”

He considered it. “He’ll contact you again, soon. Ask for his fee.”

“Like Hell I’ll give it to him,” Lucifer guffawed. “Manipulating bastard.”

“Luci, I don’t think –”

“You pay him, then! He’s your informant!” 

“Guys,” Chloe interrupted. “Wow, you really are brothers,” she chuckled, seeing how they pouted and turned away from one another. She looked to Lucifer. “I think I’ve had enough espionage and secret meetings for one day.” She closed up the truck bed. “Are you alright?” she asked him.

He nodded a little. Amenadiel took him by the shoulder and steered him back toward the car. Lucifer quickly shoved it off, but walked with him anyway.

Amenadiel would take whatever progress he could get.

“You should pay him,” he said. “Get him off your back.”

“You may if you must,” Lucifer answered. “But I won’t be blackmailed. I won’t humor charlatans.” Amenadiel unlocked the doors to his Charger and they slid inside. “I assume you know the way back to Lux, considering how often you've been there.” 

“I have been tasked with bringing you home,” Amenadiel said, his hands on the wheel but not backing out of the space.

“I very much doubt that,” Lucifer disagreed. Chloe’s truck passed behind them – she must have waited until they got into the car before taking off. 

“Do you seriously not realize just how dangerous it is to anger father?”

Lucifer stared straight ahead, his jaw tight. 

“Don’t be foolish, Luci. No matter how much you like it here. Or maybe because of it. There are so many things father can still take away from you. It’s better to do as he asks _now,_ rather than wait to find out how much you can lose.”

“Stop with the fear mongering,” Lucifer said slowly, the rage returning in his eyes. “And just take me home.”

“Lucifer,” Amenadiel started calmly. 

Lucifer slammed his hands down on the dash. “I am _not_ going to take his abuse!” he shouted, his breathing coming heavily. “For the last time, Amenadiel! You can try to do as he asks, but I am done. _Done._ Cowering from him is your jam, remember?”

Amenadiel shook his head. “You’ll regret this,” he said, looking behind him to start backing out.

Lucifer spent the rest of the drive in silence.


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter brought to you by the Billy Raffoul song, I'm Not a Saint  
> https://youtu.be/ro5_Ur3kJPk

Lucifer flew over to Chloe’s as soon as Amenadiel pulled away, checking and doubling back to ensure he wasn’t followed. Not that it probably mattered, but he couldn’t stop himself, an old habit. By the time he made it over, the sun was high in the cold sky, the blue as flat as paint. He roared up to the house. She must have heard him, or was expecting him, because she was standing in the door before he could get out of the car. Good. He wanted to make sure she was okay, and there she was, plain as day. He could feel his heart rate slow just at the sight of her.

He parked, looking over his shoulder before bounding up the steps, making to move past her inside.

She placed a careful hand on the doorframe, barring him from entering.

He took a step back. 

“I don’t think you should come in,” she said slowly.

So many words swirled in his head, but he was unable to pick out any other than the simplest. “What?” he asked. She took in another breath, and he backed up off the porch, stumbling as though pushed. 

“I’m sorry,” she began. “I can’t deal with this anymore.”

A physical blow would have hurt less. He shut his mouth.

She shut the door behind her. “I can’t deal with the secrets, the-the sex. The club. The drinking.” She stepped closer, entreating. “I care about you, Lucifer. I worry. And I just – I can’t. Anymore. It hurts too much. Hurts me too much.”

 _I thought you wanted me to trust you,_ he wanted to say, but no. No. He couldn’t. He couldn’t put it on her. “I was just trying to protect you,” he protested. It sounded weak even to his ears. 

“I know,” she said quickly. “I know. On some level. But –”

“I’ve never done this before,” he said, unable to keep the words from spilling out. Excuses, he knew. They tasted sour on his tongue. “I’ve never had someone like you before. To me. Lux is – its just – it’s just sex. It doesn’t mean anything.”

She swallowed. “Was it just sex when we – ?”

“No, no no no,” he said quickly, taking a step closer but stopping himself from going up. “God, no.” _Did she really think it was?_ “I get it. I’ll – I’ll abstain!” he said jovially, desperately. “It’s simple enough. Just you. Only you.”

She let out a breathless laugh. “I don’t want you to _abstain,_ Lucifer. I can’t believe I have to say this,” she rolled her eyes up toward the heavens, “I want you to want only me.”

“That’s all I want,” he answered, the realization hitting him like a truck. How could he have not seen it before? He lifted a hand to the house, as though it could encompass everything. “This. You.”

It was as though every word only served to hurt her more, which was the exact opposite effect he was going for. _Just let me shut up for once,_ he begged himself, biting his tongue. 

“Maybe you do,” she conceded. “Some part of you, at least. But there are more important things to you than me. Than us. And I’ve done that already, Lucifer. I’ve already taken the backseat to someone in a relationship. I can’t do it again. I can’t do it to Trixie, and I won’t do it to myself.”

He rubbed a hand over the side of his stomach, feeling the phantom pain of a thousand beatings. His eyes couldn’t seem to focus. She was right. She couldn’t be more right. Everything he had done had been the same as he had always done – put himself first because he believed no one else would. Make himself the one breaking hearts to protect his own. Any fear, any anger, all sank away into a cold, resolute numbness, settling itself deep into his bones. And he thought maybe, this time, it could have been different.

“I tried,” she told him, her voice sounding too far away. A voice from the past, calling out through the mists of time. “I really tried.”

“I know,” he answered.

“I’m sorry,” she said again.

He finally managed to fix his gaze on her. “Don’t be. You didn’t do anything you need to feel sorry for. Not ever.” He backed away. “It's not your fault.” He retreated into the Corvette.

The journey back home was going to be a long one.

 

He punched in the code to the elevator, preventing anyone from going up to the penthouse without it. It had been an experiment, to live in a place with no locks. It had been exciting to think that anyone could come or go (or come _then_ go). A taste of the freedom he had so long lived without. But now he just felt safer, knowing no one could come in. Locks had always served him well.

He stopped behind the bar and stuck a full bottle in each hand before making his way outside. He shoved off his clothes, leaving them scattered around the hot tub. He always sought out the water when upset – showers, bathtubs, pools. He didn’t know why. Some kind of ingrained response, he supposed, something primal that drew him to the ocean. The promise of abyss, of floating, of being surrounded by something. Whatever the reason, it always worked out fine. He might as well spend his last night in L.A. enjoying the view. 

The water was borderline too hot, causing sweat to bead alongside drops of water on his forehead. He dunked his head, then slicked back his hair, taking the first of many pulls straight from the bottle. It was easier, this way. Was it _this_ kind of pain his father wished for his children to avoid? Is this why he set their paths for them? Was it out of kindness, after all? Out of love? 

Lucifer slipped down, feeling the slick wall of the hot tub pull at his back. He dragged the bottle in the water with him. It would be warm in no time, but he didn’t care. It would do the same magic, hot or cold. He closed his eyes, letting the sun beat down on him. What a familiar feeling. He could almost smile at the phrasing.

He drank greedily. It was all so light, now. Easy. Simple. The pain was always less when he gave into it, when he stopped fighting. It was short-lived, he knew. The desires always came back, the need for independence, the bitterness, the ache for more. He would forget this feeling. This ease. This peace. He always forgot until it came back. 

He drank until the first bottle was emptied, only then opening his eyes to see the dark, orange light glinting off the glass. He righted himself, catching himself before going under. A little dizzy. He chuckled a little at the way the water swirled in circles around him. The empty bottle smacked on the concrete with more force than necessary, cracking. It broke into two, leaving the heavier base mostly intact, a filament winding up to the handle and breaking it off. He dropped it on the floor, uncaring, and grabbed the second bottle. 

He drifted back down into the water. Chloe was right. Chloe. _Chloe._ Even her name was beautiful. Green and gold. Glowing. How could he have ever thought he could have her? The thought seemed ridiculous, now. 

Any sliver of doubt was quickly drowned by another few pulls.

He hummed in contentment. A cigarette would be good right now. Watch the smoke drift up into the darkening sky. He turned over lazily, reaching out to grab at his jacket. His silver case fell out when he clumsily shook it, along with his mobile. 

He grabbed both, fumbling to open the case without getting the inside wet. He lay on his stomach, half-out of the water, resting up on his elbows and lighting one up. Success. He rolled onto his back, grabbing blindly for his phone.

He pulled it close to his face to pull up his contacts list, searching and dialing. He stuck it on speaker then let it rest on his wet chest, taking a drag and watching the smoke as it rang. 

Non-personalized voicemail, but he recognized the click of the message being recorded twice.

“Daaaad,” he drew out playfully, trying to retain the lightness that was quickly threatening to leave him. He sobered marginally, trying to keep the slur out of words and failing. “I don’t know if this is all part of your plan,” he told the darkening sky, “Or if you can even hear me,” he chuckled a little, then glanced at the phone. The contact definitely still said _Dad._ “But I need a favor.”

He wiped away the water from his face with the back of his hand, getting smoke in his eyes. Maybe that’s why they were tearing up.

“I’ll be the son you always wanted me to be,” he continued. “I’ll do as you ask. Go where you want me to. In exchange – all I ask –” He swallowed. He would be playing his hand, now. Revealing all his cards. His vulnerability. It wasn’t easy, even when he _wanted_ to do it. “Is that you protect Chloe.” _From Malcolm, from Amenadiel, from me, from you._ The words didn’t need to be said to be understood.

The phone gave another click. Message received. He stuck the cigarette between his lips and flipped over, listening to the phone clatter. It bounced into the water. No matter. No one he cared about would be calling him, anyway.

He slid back into the water, sucking hard on the cigarette and blowing smoke out his nose. It hit the water and bounced off, dissipating into the growing night. The hot tub lights clicked on, illuminating his body. It looked preternaturally pale in its glow. He stretched out his legs. They seemed to go on and on. How could he be so tall? He never felt so tall. Tall and thin. Skinny. Too skinny? Undesirably so, at the very least.

The cigarette burned down to its filter. He stubbed out what remained on the concrete beside him and grabbed again for the second bottle, reaching over the broken one. 

He stayed his hand.

He looked to the elevator doors. Closed. Locked. No one would be coming in. Not Maze, who always seemed to be at the right place at the wrong time. He should have known earlier about her. But it didn’t matter to him, now. What’s done was done. 

It was all done. The message was received. He would continue on the path his father set. He snapped out a hand and grabbed the second bottle, drinking too much of it in one go, leaving him coughing and sputtering. The sun had set fully, now. Darkness settled over the city like a blanket. The lights glittered like stars. Distant, he remembered. And cold.

Nothing had changed, after all. Nothing at all.

He took another pull. Some of it dribbled out from his lips, cascading down his chin. Too lazy to even swallow properly. The bottle dropped into the water, filling with great, swift gulps.

Perhaps it would be better if he didn’t look.

He kept his gaze forward, and felt around him to grab the broken glass handle, pulling it into the water with the rest of him. Chloe was taken care of. She was back on her feet, and as much as he didn’t care to admit it, would be better off without him. Malcolm would have no reason to go after her, to use her as he seemed to want to, to manipulate Lucifer if Lucifer wasn’t – if he wasn’t in her life, anymore.

The alcohol had really done its job. The first cut barely felt like anything. The second was like a pinch. A nuisance. Hot and cold at the same time. It was a cheap way out, he knew. A cop out.

But at least it was a way out.

He had tried to find another way. Tried everything else. But this life was no more than a labyrinth: one entrance, a million paths that led nowhere, and no exit.

The water seemed to cool around him. He shivered. Maybe another cigarette would be good. Calming. He reached up to grab the case, catching sight of the blood, dribbling down his arm in red, diluted rivulets. He groped with the latch, clumsy – had it always been so difficult to open? – and gave up. Another small failure, another mirthless laugh. 

He rolled his head back against the concrete and tried to find the stars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS ISN'T THE END DON'T FREAK OUT


	29. Chapter 29

Amenadiel listened to the message with a sense of smug satisfaction. _Finally_ Lucifer was starting to see the answer! How much simpler life could be for him if he just did what was asked instead of _fighting_ all the time.

Yes, he admitted, their father’s plans were sometimes unclear, but Amenadiel understood that actions spoke louder than words. And his father’s actions could not be clearer. The abuse… their father had a cruel streak, that was true. 

He was sure he was remembering it wrong, anyway. 

Lucifer had whined as a kid, but no one else seemed to be at the receiving end of what he claimed their father was doing, and the incident with the fire pit was an accident – a fight that got out of control. It was just as much Lucifer’s fault for running away, for knowing just how to rile him up.

And their father had apologized, hadn’t he? Amenadiel vaguely remembered a sense of remorse in the house while Lucifer was away recovering. It was a long time ago. A lot had happened since then. 

He was his brother’s keeper, but it was difficult when the brother didn’t want to be kept.

The tap on Lucifer’s phone had paid off, at least. He used to change phones too often to make it worthwhile, but it seemed L.A. had stabilized him enough to keep the same number. It was the last real thing he had Maze do for him. He didn’t know where she was now. He didn’t particularly care.

He hadn’t gone far after dropping Lucifer off, just down the street, really, to stop for coffee and a bite to eat, hoping that the incident in the parking garage would be enough for Lucifer to come to his senses. Seems he had. He closed his laptop after catching up on some real work – unlike all the other millennial hopefuls scattered in the small eatery around him, he assumed – and left a generous tip on the table before heading out.

No sense in giving Lucifer an opportunity to change his mind. 

 

The passcode was child’s play to guess. Amenadiel had worked for MI-6 for a time and _666_ wasn’t exactly difficult cipher. He frowned at his brother’s lack of self-preservation. He spotted him easily enough, lying half out the hot tub, bottles and clothes scattered around him. 

_Great,_ Amenadiel thought. Lucifer could never make things easy.

“Luci,” he called out, approaching with the swag of someone who’d won. “Come on. Let’s go… home…”

His voice trailed off. Lucifer was lying on his side, exposing his back. 

Amenadiel stopped.

He didn’t remember it looking so… 

Not like that. 

“Luci,” he said again, clearing his throat. “Get up.” He squatted down and pulled at his brother’s shoulder to wake him. He flopped over. 

Only then did Amenadiel see the translucent red pools around him, staining his brother’s too-white skin, dripping over the edge into the steaming, still water.

He had seen the reports. Lucifer’s binges getting out of hand, winding up with Amenadiel calling hospitals and police stations, agitated at the extra work and money it took to cover such things up. Just Lucifer being his usual out-of-control self.

Lucifer head rolled toward him of its own accord, and just like that, seeing it for real, he knew. None of these incidents were part of Lucifer’s need for attention. None of these were _incidents._ Nothing what his father did to the boy was an _incident._ Like it could be easily categorized as such. Like it was just something that just _happened._

No. His father’s actions were deliberate, and intentional, and planned, and Amenadiel had been an idiot. How many times had Lucifer come to his room to hide, thinking he was merely playing? How many times did he fall asleep in his bed, only to have Amenadiel kick him out, dismissing the bags under his eyes? How many times did he see him limping, see him favoring an arm, see him hide bruises under stubble as soon as he could grow it out? How many times did he catch him drinking, drag him home from a friend’s house kicking and screaming or completely wasted, unable to keep himself upright?

How many times had he ignored what was right in front of him, because it was easier to place his trust in their father’s words? It made sense, when they were young, when they were children. But they were all grown men, now. 

Amenadiel felt the realization pass through him. In one moment, he was his father’s tool, tasked with doing one thing and one thing only: obeying his word.

And in the next, like the hard puncture of a needle through his sternum, Amenadiel was a big brother who had failed spectacularly at the one job that actually mattered. 

Protecting his little brother.

The response kicked in after that, automatic and efficient, burying feelings down beneath years of field training.

 

\--

 

Lucifer woke slowly, to white, to the familiar sensation of cold solution in his veins. He pushed himself upright, not bothering to look around. He knew exactly where he was. Another hospital room. Another _attempt._ He couldn’t even do this properly. 

He stared down at the white and pale blue checkered gown, bringing his hands to his lap and turning them over. Gauze covered his forearms, sterile and placid and unassuming. 

Another failure, like everything else he tried.

The tears came unbidden and swift, falling cold onto his hands. It was embarrassing, the gasping, the way he could feel his face contorting. He folded over onto himself, unable to stop the tears, unable to stop the shaking that accompanied them. Everything would have been perfect. That could have been it. Clean. Easy. Not a bother to anyone anymore. 

He wouldn’t have to face the long tunnel of meaningless existence any longer. He had done it all, seen it all, experienced all of life’s highs and lows. There was nothing left for him to feel. He had been wrung out, squeezed like a wet, dirty rag until nothing more could come out. 

A large, dark hand snaked in to grab his own and grip on tightly. Lucifer glanced over. Amenadiel had pulled a chair to his side. Lucifer tried to pull his hand away, but he was either too weak or Amenadiel too strong.

“I’m sorry,” his brother said. “Luci. I’m so sorry.”

Lucifer managed to grit his teeth. “Save it.”

He thought that would be the end of it. Amenadiel would have done his duty – saved his worthless brother’s life – and would leave, to settle up the bill, to hop on a plane and return home, job done.

Instead, Amenadiel did the unthinkable.

He stood, shoved Lucifer over – nicely – then sat opposite him on the bed, pulling up a knee and gathering Lucifer up in his arms. Lucifer stiffened, completely bewildered. Amenadiel pulled him in close. It was an awkward angle, with Lucifer’s chin pressed into Amenadiel’s shoulder, but it was definitely a _hug._

“What the hell are you doing?” Lucifer asked, squashed into his brother’s ridiculously wide chest.

And then the next impossible thing happened.

Amenadiel held on, and started talking. “What were you trying to accomplish?” he asked.

“A good death,” Lucifer quipped, his eyebrows shooting up because it was, really, _the_ most obvious thing in the world, wasn’t it? “But then you had to come and ruin everything, like always.”

Amenadiel didn’t let go, his arms wrapped firmly around Lucifer’s shoulders, effectively pinning him to himself. On a good day Lucifer might be able to wrangle himself free, but today was anything but.

“I should have known,” Amenadiel started. Then he kept talking, recalling moments Lucifer would rather forget and a few he didn’t remember. _Couldn’t_ remember.

He paused, and Lucifer wondered if it was over, then. “I lost sight of the bigger picture,” he continued. “Of the true cost of my actions. How truly selfish they were.”

Lucifer remained as stiff as he could manage, knowing firmly that a warm, fuzzy hug wasn’t going to solve anything. If Amenadiel was trying to strangle forgiveness from him, it was going to take a lot tighter grip.

Then, Amenadiel brought up an incident with their mother, when she had tried to protect him, and Lucifer relaxed marginally. He pulled away enough to let his forehead rest on his brother’s shoulder, too exhausted to fight anymore.

Amenadiel brought up a memory of Lucifer as a kid, a happy one that became tainted later, of stealing Ariel’s 8th birthday cake and bringing it up to Amenadiel’s room to share. Amenadiel said he had only been putting on an angry face when Lucifer came upstairs with blue frosting already covering his face, because it looked like he had blown a Smurf. 

Lucifer couldn’t help but smile at the memory, and the image it produced.

Amenadiel lessened his grip enough to vigorously rub his brother’s back as though trying to warm him up, uncaring about the scars. Which was surprisingly refreshing. He was so used to being treated like something fragile, he hadn't even realized.

Another memory, when Amenadiel caught Lucifer making out with Tommy from Tesco’s, back behind the garage. “How old were you, again?” he asked.

Lucifer huffed out a laugh, remembering the boy’s blonde hair and golden smile. He had a type, even back then. “Fourteen.”

Amenadiel continued, until Lucifer felt himself warm. He wanted to believe it was merely his body reacting to another’s heat. But he let himself be held for longer than medically necessary, if that was the case.

Quite a bit longer.

 

“I’m not leaving,” Amenadiel said, after he had been quiet for some time. 

Lucifer stilled. “Why?” he asked, resisting the urge to make a quip.

Amenadiel finally pulled away enough to look Lucifer in the face. It was a little awkward, being so close, but Lucifer couldn’t find it in himself to pull away. 

“You’re my brother,” he said simply, as though that held the answer to everything. “I’m sorry that I didn’t understand what that meant, before.”

Lucifer tried to make his face a mask, and knew he was failing spectacularly. “Can we not tell anyone you just held me in your arms like a baby?”

Amenadiel laughed, a great booming sound that hurt his ears, being so close.

Lucifer found a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. It wasn't the end. 

It was barely the beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One! More! Chapter!


	30. Chapter 30

_One Year Later_

Lucifer slid two beef and cheese empanadas onto the plate beside a heaping helping of Spanish rice and caramelized onions and placed it in front of Ella, who was nearly bouncing in her seat in excitement. The ten-seat counter curled around Lucifer, offering a window and a door behind him to the main kitchen, but he liked to stay out here. It was usually full of people who enjoyed watching him prepare and cook their food just as they ordered it, and he was happy for the chance to show off his skills and socialize. 

“I don’t know why you never order anything else, Miss Lopez,” he told her, watching with a slight grimace as she heartily dug in. She threw her head back and moaned obscenely. Had he any romantic affections toward her, it would have been a huge tease. But since he saw her more as a little sister, and she knew that, she did it more to annoy him than anything else.

(He knew she came from a big family, too. Though she missed hers slightly more than he missed his.)

“You can order anything you want,” he reminded her. "Anything at all."

She waved her fork to make a point. “Listen, buddy. If you can find anybody else who makes empanadas the way my mother makes them, you let me know.” 

He shook his head and began to wipe the area clean. The place was pretty dead, but it _was_ three o’clock on a Tuesday afternoon. He liked the way the small bistro got busy around lunch, because it afforded him a great view out the large, open windows and outdoor seating area, letting lots of sunshine filter through, reflecting off the myriad of decorative mirrors (which Linda donated) and falling happily onto a cornucopia of hanging plants (which Ella donated).

Not that he couldn't afford them himself. Even with his father cutting off both brothers, it wasn't as though they were destitute. But Lucifer found that allowing others to decorate and donate and help out made the place feel more... grounded. It wasn't like something out of a magazine, but more like a home, where various clashing baubles got collected and proudly displayed.

“Where’s your brother?” Ella finally asked. He was waiting for it. She always asked when he wasn't here.

“Don’t you know?” he teased. “Aren’t you two thick as thieves nowadays?”

“Hey, I don’t mind me a little tall, broad, and –”

“Broody?” 

She gave him a look. “He’s not so bad.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “It’s much better now that he’s got a job and isn’t taking up any more of my valuable real estate.”

Ella pointedly shifted to look around the mostly-empty room and the corner table where Amenadiel used to sit. Lucifer called him a fungus, once, spreading his laptop and papers around. A waitress moved past them to return to a table with a young couple who were settling up their bill. 

“You know what I mean,” he said, as she turned back. “I'm never trusting him with paperwork ever again. I’ll never forgive him.”

“Oh, come on,” she goaded. “ _Luci’s_ is an _adorable_ name for a place like this.”

“I hate you.”

She spoke around another mouthful, grinning. “Love you too, man. Love you too.”

He finished cleaning up as she ate, then leaned forward with his elbows on the counter, setting his chin in his hands and watching the traffic go by. “What is he doing, again?”

Ella scraped up the last bite. “Some kind of consulting work for the LAPD.”

“Dreadful,” Lucifer decided. “But I suppose he can’t help it. He’s only happiest when knee-deep in somebody else’s business.”

Ella nodded in agreement. “Yeah, _but_ –”

“Ugh,” he interrupted. “Don’t say it.” She laughed. He took her clean plate away and stuck it in the window. “Anything else?” he asked. “You know I can make you anything. Try me.”

She glanced at the clock above them just as the door chimed. “Nope,” she said. “I think I’ve got everything I need. Thanks, _Luci,_ ” she said, a bit louder than strictly necessary.

Lucifer wondered at this small, perpetually-optimistic woman before turning his attention to the person approaching.

His mouth fell open of its own accord, and he quickly snapped it shut.

Ella caught his gaze and swiveled around in her seat with a squeal and leapt off. She tightly hugged a mildly-confused Chloe before offering a two-finger salute as a goodbye, hustling quickly out the door.

“Hi,” Chloe said, turning as though coming out of a whirlwind and siding up to the counter. She hid any awkwardness behind a small smile, apparently finding everything around him very interesting. She tried for a laugh. “Ella asked me to meet her here for lunch, but I guess I’m late.”

Lucifer caught his breath in his throat, which apparently had no qualms about preventing anything resembling speech as well as breathing.

Chloe was as radiant as he remembered. More so. His memory could never do her justice. Couldn’t capture the way she moved, how she held herself, her light perfume wafting gently in the air. Her hair was loose around her shoulders, catching the sun from behind. 

She waited a few moments, letting his silence linger. “Maybe, I should –”

“Have we met before?” he asked, hoping that it didn’t come out as crazy. 

Her shoulders loosened and relaxed. She took a hesitant step forward until she could rest against the counter. Could he be dreaming? He had never felt so light, as though she had brought all the sunshine in the room. He could see nothing but her.

“No,” she decided, a smile playing at the corners of her lips. “I don’t think we have.”

He offered her a hand and she took it. Her hands had never been soft and delicate. They were the sure and steady hands of someone who, like him, worked with them daily. He let his thumb drift over a knuckle. Her gaze flickered to the thin, white scar along his forearm, but he made no move to hide it. She released him only to sit where Ella had been.

“What can I get you?” he asked.

She took him in for a moment. He did not feel judged or scrutinized, merely _seen._ Apparently she liked what she saw, because she smiled mischievously and rested her chin on a fist. “Surprise me.” 

He beamed.

The scrambled eggs were _delicious._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all she wrote, folks. I hope you've enjoyed this fic! It was rough going for a short while there (does anybody else hate March as much as I do? No?) but for those of your who have stuck around, thank you. I can't thank you all enough.  
> If you take anything away from this fic, please remember:  
>  _Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new."_  
>  Ursula K. LeGuin, _The Lathe of Heaven_


	31. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this for @casuallydeliciousphilosopher (so many thanks to her for getting me to finish this story) and decided that I should probably put it somewhere other people could read it too. It's sappy and fluffy and perhaps a more complete ending than the one I offered. I hope you enjoy this short epilogue.

The hedges behind Chloe’s house had grown over the summer into a lush, emerald green. They stood, leaves brushing one another, as sentinels against a field of ripe strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries; the apple trees were bare, their fruits already harvested. Lucifer had tried mowing the yard - once - before they decided to landscape the area with as little grass as possible. The result was a weaving labyrinth of flower beds, and a back corner dedicated to a fenced-in garden patch. Cherry tomatoes were still red and ripe, hanging heavy in bunches on the vine, and the artichokes and cucumbers were giving up their last few fruits of the year. Beside the table and surrounded by blooming roses stood the old park table Chloe’s father had rescued from some reconstruction project. Chloe and Lucifer had spent a weekend sanding and sealing it, in which Lucifer gently reminded Chloe half a dozen times that there were people who do this sort of thing for a living. It got done all the same, and she did not miss Lucifer’s somewhat shyly-hidden prideful smile when they stood side-by-side and admired their work. 

Currently occupying said table was Linda, Ella, Dan, Charlotte, Chloe, and Lucifer, who were enjoying the lull between dinner and the Main Event, sharing the bottles of wine Linda and Charlotte brought as the sun began to dip under the horizon. 

Trixie, who had been running breathlessly around with Dan’s young black labrador, politely tapped on Lucifer’s elbow and leaned close to whisper in his ear. “Is it time yet?” she asked.

Lucifer looked to Chloe, an eyebrow quirked in question. She couldn’t help but smile, but still managed to roll her eyes. “Alright,” she conceded.

Trixie and Lucifer (and the dog) disappeared into the house.

“None of you better sing,” Chloe warned. The rest of the party shook their heads in agreement, peppering a few very unconvincing “of course nots” and “nevers” between them.

Trixie emerged from the backdoor with a bright pink cake held carefully in her arms. Lucifer hovered close, tensing as the dog darted past them back to Dan. Everyone held their breath as she bit her lip and slid it onto the table. 

“It’s all Trixie’s work,” Lucifer explained - and somewhat warned - them, adjusting it to face Chloe. “I never could bake. Bread notwithstanding.”

“It’s like science,” Trixie explained. “It’s easy.”

“I’m glad you think so, monkey,” said Chloe. Trixie jumped into her lap as Lucifer lit a couple of candles. “I’m also glad you didn’t put on the correct number of candles,” she added.

“A lady never reveals her secrets,” said Charlotte conspiratorially. Linda agreed vehemently, taking a quick look at her buzzing phone. 

“It doesn’t matter what age you are,” Ella added. “Things happen when they’re supposed to.”

Lucifer presented the cake while Trixie bounced excitedly. “Make a wish, Mom,” she said, as Chloe oofed. 

She looked into the flickering flames, threatening to go out with the light breeze. The table grew quiet. “I don’t need to, monkey,” she explained, looking to her friends. “I have everything I need.”

She blew out the candles, regretting nothing.

 

After cake, Ella helped Chloe clean up while Dan and Trixie played fetch with the dog with Charlotte content to watch from the porch (especially if that meant no dish duty). Linda sat beside Lucifer before he could wander off and find something to busy his hands.

“This might not be the best time,” she began, “but I was wondering if you’ve heard from Maze.”

He turned his silver cigarette case over in his hands, debating if he wanted to smoke. “I haven’t.”

“Do you want to?”

He considered it, the shadows lengthening on his face. “Sometimes Maze was all I had.”

Linda waited for him to say more. She checked her phone again, then put it back in her purse. “Sometimes we aren’t able to choose what situation we find ourselves in. Sometimes all we can do is try to be better than we were before.”

Lucifer nodded. “Yes, doctor.”

She nudged him playfully. “So. There’s no pressure. And I know it’s not _your_ birthday, but she - she’s here. Out front. If you like.”

“Maze is here?” Lucifer repeated.

“Yep.”

“Now?”

She smiled.

Something in him froze. But his learning replaced it, and he quickly shook it off, standing. “Thank you,” he said.

“Of course.”

 

He slipped through the house without being noticed - or, at least, Chloe saying nothing about it - and found Maze sitting on the front steps, obviously uncomfortable but trying her best to hide it, dressed in a maroon sweater and black, ripped jeans. 

He sat beside her wordlessly, and pulled out the case, deciding to smoke.

Half the cigarette burned to ash before either of them gathered the courage to speak. 

“I’m sorry,” Lucifer said, earning him a comically surprised look from his companion. “I didn’t realize - I should have realized that you were my friend more than you were ever my father’s employee.”

She accepted the apology with a nod. She gnawed on her bottom lip. “I’m not good at this,” she admitted.

“I know. It’s alright.”

He smoked the cigarette down to the filter and dropped it into a secret, hidden pop can under the steps. “You want some cake?”

“Did you make it?”

“God, no. Trixie did.”

Maze smiled. “I’m in.”

He held the door for her, and only when he heard Ella cry out in joyful surprise did he allow himself to sigh in relief. Ella dragged Maze out back, earning another cry of voices into the air.

Lucifer’s birthday wasn’t for a few more months, but as he ducked into the kitchen and earned a simple, absent-minded kiss on the cheek from Chloe as she dried her hands, he knew with certainty that his wish couldn’t wait.

“Will you marry me?” he asked.

She stilled her hands. His heart jumped into his throat at her silence, but when she looked into his eyes he already knew the answer.

“What took you so long?” she asked.

He lifted his shoulders in a weak shrug. “Things happen when they’re supposed to.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck and whispered a yes against his lips. They kissed, and she placed her forehead against his.

“I love you,” he told her, eyes closed.

He felt her smile. “I love you too.”

The dog barked, and Chloe shook her head and pulled away, threading her fingers through the back of his hair. “Does that mean we can get a dog?”

He heaved in a huge sigh, but before she could rebut his answer he ducked low and scooped her up onto his shoulder, fireman-carrying her weakly protesting and laughing self out to the backyard.

He was going to have a very hard time thinking of a different wish for his birthday, now.


End file.
